Building the New Rebellion
by BIG Z1776
Summary: Immediately after the Battle of Crait the Resistance is on the ropes, yet hope is kindled. Its heroes have survived, but the First Order is in control of the galaxy. Finn, Poe, and Rey must now help rebuild a Rebellion from nothing but a handful of patriots pilots and soldiers. This is the story of the Resistance's return from oblivion, and the story of a new chapter for the galaxy
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Location: Millennium Falcon, in Hyperspace

Eighteen, that was all that remained. Leia had repeatedly counted her remaining soldiers, officers, and pilots. The number came out to the same pitiful number. But she still had Poe, Finn, Chewie, and Rey. But she'd lost what family she had left. She hadn't seen it, but she knew Luke was gone, now one with the Force. Her brother's last act had saved her, he'd come in to the rescue just like when they were barely adults on the first Death Star. But this time he wasn't going to be here, and neither would Han, who had also saved her. She knew that memory was really hurting Chewbacca as well. That poor Wookiee was all that remained of the original crew, save C-3P0 and R2-D2. But looking around she saw young faces, Finn, Rey, and Poe, and they needed a leader.

"Everyone," she called out to the group sitting and standing in the main rec room of the Falcon, "We still aren't out of danger, and we're not out of the fight."

"General, with what? We have no ships, weapons, or money," Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix protested, her hair in its buns coming undone.

"We'll find weapons, we'll find ships, we'll find beg or steal whatever we can get our hands on," Poe Dameron responded, "This war isn't over so long as we're breathing."

"He's right," Finn agreed, "The war's not over. The First Order will continue to search for us, no matter who it's leader is."

"Which is why we're going to Dantooine," Leia told the assembled handful of men and women.

"Dantooine?" Poe asked.

"There's an old Rebel outpost there," Leia informed them, "hidden amongst the canyons in the south. There may be some supplies and weapons, maybe a shuttle or two. But it'll at least be safe."

Rey hadn't been there, she was sitting on passenger seat in the cockpit of the Falcon, holding her knees against her chest. She had heard, but had nothing to say. There was far too much going through her mind. She'd lost so much, Han and now Luke. Who would teach her the ways of the Force now?

Location: Planet Dantooine

The Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace over the outer rim world. There were no enemy ships, but no friendly ones either. The only thing that they could do was listen to the news broadcasts. None were any good. All the major systems were bowing to the First Order. Fleets of Star Destroyers were appearing over world after world. Dreadnoughts pummeled cities that refused to submit, and those few that resisted were crushed. No one would face the First Order, no one but them. And here they would start.

"Take us in Chewie, these coordinates please," Leia told him.

Chewbacca opened the throttle and the Falcon dove down towards the planet's surface, towards a long complex series of gnarled canyons dropping down into the larger main canyon. Rey, Finn, and Poe were in the cockpit, watching the planet rising towards them as the ship moved into the canyonlands. The land was parched and dry, with only a few mountain herds of grazers being the only living things that they could see. Tangled dark green-leaved trees were everywhere, with lighter softer greenery on the riverbanks of the canyon floor. All life in these canyons depended on the river that created the canyon and its amazing topography. Above this canyon was rolling ocean of tall grasses, where wild nerf herds roamed in the thousands.

"Never seen a land like this," Rey said softly.

"Wait until you see the rest of the planet," Poe replied, "It's pretty impressive."

"Not as impressive as this," Rey shook her head.

Poe smiled, for the first time in a long time he was smiling, this girl was amazing, she was just so new to everything. It was nice to see someone so untouched by the wonders of the galaxy experiencing them for the first time. Leia as well was enjoying Rey's newly seen appreciation for something new. While they did that Chewie expertly piloted the ship to the end of the river, canyon, to a dead-end point where they saw another length of canyon open up and dropped additional water into the canyon where the canyon dropped down and united the low forks around them. Two waterfalls plunged into the sinkhole, where the water pooled in a pond that flowed down the larger main canyon where the view was so much grander, with dozens of towers of stone carved away, protecting the hidden outpost.

The ship dropped into this main canyon, which measured only about a hundred meters across in this place and was another hundred meters down. Inside there was an opening between the two waterfalls and in that opening was a metal hangar door. It was shut, the Rebellion had long ago left it when they became the New Republic. They had no need of a small hidden outpost when they were winning the war and driving the Empire further and further away. In fact this place was so minor Leia could barely remember what it even did as far as its mission was concerned. When they got low enough they saw that the hangar was recently visited. A First Order TIE/sf Space Supremacy Starfighter was sitting in the side of the hangar.

"Zay," Leia said on her personal comm, "We're coming down now."

"Roger that general, we've been waiting for you," the voice of a young woman responded and Poe and Finn and Rey all looked with anticipation at the hangar to see two people standing by the TIE, one was a human female, the other was a Duros, so they were most definitely not First Order.

"Who's that?" Finn asked.

"Inferno Squad, I sent them to find help before the evacuation but…they weren't in time," Leia sighed, "They then scouted out for potential bases, making sure that this one was safe. We're now all together, or what's left of us."

"It's a start," Poe nodded, looking down at the girl in particular as the ship landed within the hangar.

It wasn't much, but it had some decent size. More than twenty carved out cubbies for starfighters and some rickety old maintenance walkways and lifts. There were a few derelict personnel transports left, and there were more than a few hoses and pumps to fuel cells laying about. A few crates and fuel barrels were scattered about, but it was solid. There was a smaller opening behind the thick stone cubbies where starfighters could be held in a more reserve function, and would have to be threaded through the cubby holes. And hanging over the back of the hangar a large white and red Rebel flag, looking no worse for wear save for a layer of dust. The lights were also on, with more than a couple being broken or flickering.

"Not the most intact of outposts," Poe said as he walked out.

"We didn't have any time to roll out the red carpet, but it's in the back if you want to land again I can get it," Shriv responded.

"Who're you?" Zay asked, putting her hands on hips.

"Commander-er…Captain, Poe Dameron."

"Zay," the girl replied, and saw the others coming down, "You must be Finn, and Rey."

"Hi," Finn nodded, waving a quick hand.

"So you're Inferno Squad?" Rey asked, having heard the name a couple times before.

"And you're the Jedi," Shriv said, flashing a broad smile, "Shriv, I think I can say I'm the leader."

"Are you?" Zay questioned.

"By the chain of command, I think so. Your mother may have been the leader but the military isn't hereditary. As much as many would like to think it just doesn't work that way."

"Not normally, Shriv," Leia chuckled.

"But yes, I guess I am the Jedi," Rey sighed.

"I'm sorry about Master Skywalker. My dad…he said he was a good man," Zay said, reminding herself of her back-to-back losses of family.

"He was," Rey nodded.

A bit of silence fell on them, and Poe stepped up, knowing now wasn't a good time for this, "We have work to do. Zay, Shriv, what did you find so far?"

"The turbines are still functional, we've got power. But the shield generator's going to need some work and the communications system will need even more work," Shriv explained.

"That's something we expected, any ships, weapons, supplies?"

"The arsenal's got a few blasters and we found a couple crates of old rations. The medical bay has some bacta, and a broken medical droid," Zay responded, "Looks like most of what they had they left here. Must've left in a bit of a hurry."

"There's a U-Wing in the lower maintenance bay, but it's engines are off the frame and the controls are a rat's nest," Shriv said offhand, "And we haven't looked at the whole base. It's a bit of a maze."

"Okay, first thing's first, let's get the comms and shield up and running, everyone else let's get this place cleaned up and operational!" Poe ordered loudly, "BB-8, get to work on those comms. R2, on the shields, let's go!"

The ragged crew of Resistance members poured out, leaving Rey standing there as Finn helped carry Rose from the Falcon and Shriv helped show him to the medical bay. The young Resistance officers began dividing crew and troops into working parties as Chewie stood next to Leia and made a few grunts and growls.

"I know Chewie you don't like the underground," Leia said patting the hair arm and started walking towards the command center, with Chewie's help holding an arm for Leia to steady herself, although she didn't need it.

"It'll be a rough climb up from here," Rey said as she followed.

"It will, but we have what we need," Leia said as the door groaned open at their approach, but stopped halfway across. Chewie pushed it the rest of the way. Leia walked in as BB-8 rolled in, beeping and booping as he looked around the old tech of the control consoles and computers. Leia sat down at the comms station, and rolled up her sleeves, and pounded a fist on the top, opening up the side panel, "Let's get started my dear," she smiled warmly to Rey, who smiled back and grabbed a toolbox that was on a shelf dug from the stone where a few other small boxes were stored.

Poe had gone straight to the maintenance hangar, and was gravely disappointed with what he found. The U-Wing, the standard four-engined variant, hadn't been in flying condition when the Rebels had it, and he saw the tarps covering its engines were off to the side, and old dried residues of oil and other fluids were everywhere. Tools, thankfully, were also laying scattered on numerous workbenches and shelves were filled with parts and toolboxes. It was fairly large, big enough for more than twenty X-Wings to be placed in close proximity. The overhead lifts were seemingly in decent shape, they'd need some work, but he knew that they could make it work. They would need them to get any maintenance done on a major scale for any more starfighters that they got their hands on. But first they had to make this place work, and this U-Wing would greatly help in terms of scavenging for supplies from other Rebel and probably abandoned Republic outposts.

"This thing's ancient, but it'll work," Poe nodded as he put his hands on his hips, analyzing the shuttle.

"You sure? I mean…how're we going to get this thing up and running?" one of his two remaining pilots responded.

"We can't without getting the maintenance bay running," the other pilot, an Abednedo named C'ai Threnalli, informed them both, referring to the chaos of the bay.

"Yeah, let's get a figure for what we've got," Poe nodded, knowing that they had to get things cleaned and organized, then they could work.

"Captain Dameron, incoming X-Wings!" one of the troops called out from the stairs as they got started.

"They made it!" Poe smiled broadly, remembering that four of his pilots had been out trying to rendezvous with any Republic military forces that survived. Kare Kun, Niv Lek, Jessika Pava, and Temmin Wexely had all been dispatched, and now they were returning.

He rushed up, and saw the four T-70 X-Wings entering the hangar and landing within the side cubbies as several people rushed to them. Poe saw Temmin, the stocky bearded pilot who was one of their more capable mechanics and experienced pilots popping his canopy. He tore off his helmet and started climbing out.

"Temmin!" Poe yelled out.

"Commander! Boy am I glad to see you!" the big man said as he jumped to the deck and the two embraced, glad that the other was alive, "Where's…is this it? Is this all that made it?"

"I'm afraid so," Poe nodded, "As far pilot's go, we're it now."

"We'll make it work sir," Niv said from his X-Wing.

"I'd love to bring some good news Commander, but I'm afraid we don't have any," Kare Kun, the short-haired blonde lieutenant and former commander of Stiletto Squadron said glumly as she joined the pilot gathering as Jessika, Black-3, also walked over, giving a hug to her comrades.

"The Republic Fleet's been annihilated. The remnants massed for a counterattack against the First Order but they were jumped, they tried making a break for deep space, but the First Order found them and wiped them out completely. We tried to help sir," Jessika said in response.

"The Republic military's collapsed, bases after base is either being destroyed or surrendered, desertion's gutted the army and the fleet's…just gone," Temmin sourly surmised, "With that tracking tech the stragglers were just picked off."

"They did the same to us, but got a good lick in, we destroyed Snoke's ship," Poe said proudly.

"The Supremacy?! How?!" Temmin demanded to know, he knew better than most what that ship was capable of.

"Admiral Holdo, she jumped the Raddus right into the dreadnought, tore it in two," Poe said quietly, "She took fifteen Star Destroyers with her."

"Bloody hell…" Niv said in awe, "A hyperspace ramming…and we killed Snoke?"

"That's a question for Rey, the Jedi."

"Well, we now have four fighters," Poe nodded, seeing the hangar not looking so empty any more, and it helped, "Best go report to the General, she'll want to hear this. Even if it's only bad news."

"Yes sir," Temmin and the others responded with a salute and walked towards the stairs that went up to the command center. They walked in and Poe could just sense Leia's response to the bad news.

"Hold on," Poe said as he thought of what he'd been told, "Desertion…bases…that's it!"

He sprinted up the stairs, and burst into the command center as the other three pilots made their report.

"Something you want to add Captain?" Leia asked.

"Yes General, a mission, to take advantage of the situation," Poe replied, "The Republic's military is collapsing right?"

"It probably already has," Kare replied honestly.

"That means their bases near here are probably only staffed by the most determined of their personnel, people we can trust to recruit into the Resistance. We go there, and tell them the fight's not over, bring them back and show the galaxy there's still a spark of hope."

"You want to steal from the bases?" Rey asked.

"It's not stealing if no one is there to say no," Poe reminded her.

"I know one, a reserve depot on the planet Lah'mu, Han helped set it up, there shouldn't be much there except for a token garrison," Leia explained.

"A garrison we could recruit or overpower," Niv remarked.

"Preferably, recruit," Leia reminded everyone present.

"General, request permission to salvage whatever we can from the military reserve depot on Lah'mu," Poe said with a confident smile, one that hadn't been seen in a while.

"Permission granted, take Chewie, Rey, Finn, and three of your pilots, and Inferno Squad, we need as many ships as you can bring back. Most important necessities are starfighters, those will be the first to be stolen or destroyed, Chewie, Finn, you two pack the Falcon with whatever medical supplies, weapons, and equipment you can get. We're on Dantooine, supplies are in no short supply," Leia told them all, now in the zone.

"Alright," Poe clapped his hands, "Jessika, C'ai, Niv, you're on me. The rest of you, you're on clean-up and repair, Temmin, there's a U-Wing down in the maintenance hangar, we could really use that if you can get to it."

"Roger that Commander."

"Uh, it's actually captain now," Poe sighed, remembering his demotion.

"Oh, rough couple days eh Black Leader," Niv poked.

"Easy there pilot, you're not immune to the chain of command yet," Poe warned as they all filed out to get going on their mission.

They needed this, and it was just the kind of boost the other members needed to have, to see their numbers boosted a bit, some equipment and weapons and some starfighters parked in the hangar would be a big morale boost for everyone. However, Poe noticed something, Rey had been referred to as a pilot. But she would need some proper flight gear before that happened. For that he knew that if this place had starfighters it would have flight gear, perhaps enough to take home with them to outfit other new pilots.

"So, you're pilot huh?" Poe asked the girl as they boarded the Falcon.

"Yeah, I uh…had a Y-Wing computer that I salvaged and learned to fly using the simulator function it had. I flew the Falcon when Finn and I saved BB-8," she said calmly as they went to the cockpit, but Chewie shoved him back as he went for the co-pilot's chair.

"Oh come on Chewie I haven't flown a ship in days," Poe whined and Chewie growled in reply.

"Chewie says that that's his chair."

"Yeah I see that," Poe shook his head as he begrudgingly sat down in the chair behind Rey.

"You're supposed the be the best pilot in the Resistance, right?" she asked as Chewie lifted off.

"That's right, and you, you're supposed to be this super powerful Jedi, right?"

"Well, I don't exactly have a teacher anymore," Rey shrugged, looking down at her hands.

"You at least have friends," Poe reminded her.

"Yeah, I guess I do."

Location: Planet Lah'mu

The Falcon dropped out of lightspeed over the quiet world as close as Chewie felt comfortable with. There were no Republic ships in orbit, and no authorities challenged their approach. All law and order that the Republic once had out here had completely evaporated.

"Normally there's a Republic customs agent standing by to catalogue each ship with a corvette on standby to scan, now there's nobody," Poe sighed, shaking his head, lamenting the complete lack of Republic presence.

"Let's hope the arsenal's still there," Poe responded, leaning against the door as the other pilots watched as well.

"You and me both pal, get ready to land guys," Poe ordered as the Falcon dove into the atmosphere, converging on the location Leia had provided.

"There it is Chewie," Rey stated once they got through the lit misty rain coming down over this black sandy and rocky coastal area, "There, the entrance is just under that overhang."

She was pointing at a flat sandy valley that had a low wetland flowing below it. An overhang was held up by a rocky column that she could see had a pair of bunkers and V-232 artillery turrets facing out to both sides of the support beam. Below the overhanging stone there was a large closed hangar door opening, and they saw that it was indeed undisturbed. Chewie piloted them in close, and were both relieved and disappointed to see no life in the base. The freighter went through the pouring water flowing down the face of the stone cliff and then landed next to the hangar doors. It was old, but seemed maintained. The other pilots were the first to leave the ship, blasters raised.

However the place was not abandoned. There was the hiss of a door behind them by a bunker hidden from sight from the outside behind the column between the turrets. They turned around and four soldiers, Republic soldiers, had raised their EL-16HFE blaster rifles towards them. Their faces were masked by their helmets with only their eyes visible behind their yellow blast goggles. They wore a dark uniform with a vest and a holster for a pistol. The Republic symbol was painted onto their helmets' front and they had the Republic seal against on patches on their arms.

"This is a restricted zone, identify yourselves," the soldier up front warned, and they saw he was a mere corporal, and they knew that he was just a kid.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey same side," Poe said quickly, "Captain Poe Dameron, Republic Fleet."

"Prove it," the young NCO demanded, aiming his blaster at Poe.

"Okay, alright," Poe said quickly, holding a hand up while he grabbed his old ID card with his other hand, "See, Republic."

"That's him alright, I recognize his face from the Resistance posters," one of the other kids replied.

"The Poe Dameron, you're him?" the third man responded.

"Yeah, the Poe Dameron," Poe nodded, lowering his hands, and waved down the rest of his men.

"Didn't know you were famous Dameron," Zay smirked.

"Well, ace pilot, y'know it's hard not to be seen as a celebrity," Poe grinned confidently.

"Who're you guys?" Finn asked.

"Just guards, we're just caretakers really," one of the men replied, "Our officer's disappeared, never showed up. None of us can fly so we can't really go anywhere."

"You still willing to fight for the Republic?" Rey asked.

"We haven't fought for the Republic very much. Most of our time has been spent playing Sabaac and fishing, reckon we can at least give a shot," the Corporal shrugged, "What do you need?"

"Everything. Ships, equipment, weapons," Poe explained, "Whatever we can get."

"Well," the Republic trooper said with a smile, "We've got plenty of that."

He waved to one of his men who walked over to the control panel within the bunker and then the massive hangar door began opening. And Poe was tickled by what he saw as the door opened. Double stacked T-70 X-Wing Starfighters ran along the wall to his right. His initial count was almost forty starfighters right off the bat, and there were several Montura-Class Shuttles along the opposite wall, those along with the Falcon would come in handy for transporting their haul. The group knew that this was a big moment, if they could scavenge these fighters they'd be more than ready to start fighting back. A pair of interior doors were large enough to signal the presence of storage units in the back, and that was where the group went to first.

"Alright, we've got fighters, let's get them fueled up," Poe said, pointing to BB-8, "Buddy that's you, get the best ones fueled and ready to go. The rest of us, let's grab what we can, weapons, equipment, and supplies," Poe declared, laying out the plan and then pointed at one of the shuttles, "Finn, can you fly one of those?"

"You bet I can," Finn nodded.

"Good, we'll load the shuttle and the Falcon while the fighters fuel up, Rey, with me. Let's see if we can get you some flight gear," Zay said before Poe could, catching him off-guard.

The two women walked away, following the clearly labeled signs to the sections with uniforms and personal gear. Poe knew that he wouldn't be welcome where they were going and what they were going to do. But he did have an interest in that section of the warehouse.

"Zay, make sure you grab some boxes of flight gear and helmets. We need uniforms," he called out.

"No you can't go with the girls to change, pervert," Jessika replied over her shoulder in a good-natured taunt, joining the girls as well, despite already being in flight gear.

"What was that about?" Finn asked in confusion.

"Women Finn, women," Poe shook his head, "Alright pal come on, let's go grab some weapons. We'll need as much as we can get."

"So, who's Inferno Squad?" Niv asked as the group of guys followed the aisles of tall box-bearing shelves to the locked weapons storage.

"We," Shriv explained, "Are the remnants of a turncoat Imperial spec ops unit. Zay's mother and father defected after the Empire destroyed their own homeworld. Her parents were recently killed by the First Order. Her mother, Inferno's leader, was Iden Versio. She uh…did quite a bit to save you guys. We were the ones who got Commander-I'm sorry, Captain Dameron," he corrected himself, "The plans for that dreadnought you took out."

"Nice job on that by the way," Poe nodded in appreciation.

"You're most welcome," Shriv nodded.

"Here, the weapons locker," one of the Republic troopers that had joined them pointed, and pulled out his pass card, "Take what you want, should be enough for you to run a small war."

"That's the idea," Finn said as the door opened and he went in first, shining a flashlight around, grinning at the wealth of armaments that they were seeing.

Inside were boxes upon boxes of blaster rifles and ammunition. All of it was old, dating back never less than a decade. Poe knew that they were going need these weapons, and so he grabbed a hovercart, and pulled it in.

"Let's get to work," Poe said, and grabbed onto a crate marked with having thirty-six EL-16HFE Blaster Rifles, Finn grabbed the other side, and pulled it off the stack and lowered it onto the cart.

"Now we're getting somewhere," Finn grinned.

They all began getting to work, grabbing up crates of weapons that didn't have a repulsorlift function and putting them onto the cart. Crates of power packs and detonators and other explosives were actually required to be in repulsorlift crates, and so a whole conga line of them was arranged aiming towards the hangar. It was an easy task, but one that they had to hurry with.

"Alright, get this stuff to the Falcon," Poe said once they had filled the cart with another seven of the rifle crates and eight full E-WEB Heavy Repeating Blaster Rifles, complete with power packs, cables, and tripods.

"Roger that sir," Niv nodded in response and started pulling the weapons out.

"C'ai, get the explosives as well, Finn and I will get another load," Poe ordered, "How's your team doing?" Poe asked the trooper who had been assisting them.

"They're loading the shuttle with munitions for the X-Wings, proton torpedoes and concussion missiles."

"Good," Poe nodded as he thought of something that he kicked himself for not remembering sooner, "You have droids in storage here?"

"Yeah, we should have some BB units or R2 units," he nodded.

"Grab as many as you can," Poe ordered, "and get them to the fighters that are being fueled up. I'll send one of the girls to help you."

"Yes sir," the soldier nodded and saluted before turning to go about his orders.

Elsewhere Rey stepped out from a small closet wearing her new orange flightsuit and white vest and a life support box on it. She had picked out a pair of black boots in her size and held the helmet under her arm. Rey was absolutely giddy to be wearing something that she long dreamed about. It was frankly a dream come true.

"Very nice," Zay said as she walked over, tightening a couple straps on her vest that were a bit loose, "You look like you're ready to take on the whole First Order."

"That'll have to wait until we've finished here," Rey said as she took the haversack that held her other clothes, the ones she'd grown so used to.

"Agreed, come on, we've gotten a couple crates, thankfully they shrink wrap this stuff so there's hundreds of uniforms and other clothes in here," Jessika said as she patted the carts of uniform boxes that they'd gathered. Among them were helmets for infantry and pilots, new ones.

"Right, let's go, we've got a lot to stow aboard the Falcon," Rey smiled, excited to get this done so she could maybe lay claim to an X-Wing. It was an exciting time, and for the first time she was hyped up for the opportunity to stand and fight against Kylo Ren.

The other female pilots also grinned, the whole feeling of the room had changed, Rey's joy had struck a cord within them. It was an amazing thing how a smile could see everyone's mood change. Even when they were just a percentage point of what was left of the original Resistance just days ago. Their prospects now were far greater than they had been mere hours ago.

They all began to push their haul back towards the hangar, and Rey stopped when she forgot something, she turned around and grabbed the blank white helmet she had put down. That may have been rather important. However when she grabbed it she felt a slight ripple through the Force, and she focused on it for a split second before the cold feeling swept over her and pointed towards the direction of the hangar, where her comrades had just gone. She ran out, grasping her NN-14 blaster pistol in her right hand she sprinted towards the hangar, but when she got there she was shocked, familiar red and black uniformed cyborg soldiers wearing a red helmet with a black circle were holding blasters to her comrades. Shriv and the Resistance pilots C'ai and Niv were all on their knees with binders holding their arms tight behind their back. The soldiers had all taken strips of black spacer's tape and slapped them over their mouths, keeping all of them quiet, keeping the trap well-hidden. Next to them all four Republic soldiers had their helmets and vests on the ground and all their weapons were tossed into a pile in front of them. Zay and Jessika had only just gotten caught, with Jessika having had her arms bound and she was fiercely resisting as her captors pushed her to her knees. Zay however hadn't been restrained yet and saw Rey rush in.

"Run!" she yelled at her, but was grabbed around the neck and a stun baton jabbed her in the side and she nearly collapsed from the electric shock.

It was a fair warning, But Rey was not going to listen. She lifted her blaster, but a pair of blasters were charged right behind her, and she looked to see a very familiar face, Bala-Tik, of the Guavian Death Gang.

"Afternoon love," the man said with a grin holding his concussion blaster aimed at her, "Drop it, and you and your friends live. If you don't…"

One of the security soldiers lifted his blaster at Chewbacca and the Wookiee growled threateningly, and Rey got the picture instantly and dropped her blaster.

"Alright, alright!" she said desperately, throwing her hands up, "Just don't hurt them."

"Smart lass," Bala-Tik smirked victoriously, and Rey felt her wrists get grabbed roughly and pulled behind her back and a pair of stun-cuffs tightly applied to them. This was the third time within two weeks she'd found herself detained and was getting sick of it, "Now, where's Solo?"

"What?" she asked.

"Don't take me for a fool! I recognize that Wookiee and that junker," he pointed at the Millennium Falcon, "Now where is he?"

"He's dead," she said quietly.

"Is he now?" Bala-Tik responded with a smile, "Search the warehouse," he ordered a handful of his troops, the one holding Rey started pushing her towards the others, but Bala-Tik grabbed her roughly by the jaw, "Be warned, if you're lying you'll watch your friends die one by one."

He released her and the soldier warbled something in the cyborg language that came from the helmet. She was shoved down to her knees and one of the others roughly applied a strip of tape across her mouth. Rey pulled away roughly, showing as much indignation as she could.

"Keep them out of sight," Bala-Tik ordered the security soldiers, pointing at the back of the room.

The group was yanked to their feet and roughly made to walk to the back of the hangar. Their captors made them each sit against the wall, lined up shoulder to shoulder. Rey was ticked, but beyond that she was afraid. There was most definitely a huge bounty on her, and if these gangsters had any sort of method to track bounties they'd find her out. As she ran the options through her head she looked up, and saw a very welcome sight, BB-8, he was hiding beneath the storage racks of X-Wings, which meant that there was still some hope.

Poe and Finn were still loading up a cart full of weapons and ammunition. Poe's comm started going off on his belt, and he reached down and activated it. Before he even got a word in there was a long series of beeps and boops from BB-8. Poe's eyes went wide, and he looked to Finn immediately.

"We've got trouble."

 **Well I've gone for it, I'm pretty excited to write for these characters for the first time. I am not a supporter of the new movies' tendencies to SJW the hell out of the franchise. I do not like Admiral Holdo, her point in the movie was…pointless. The arrogance with which the directors have treated us the fans who disagree with their decisions has made me an enemy of them. So this story is sort of my attempt to show them the fact there's a better way to go, and I, a college kid, can do a better job at doing justice to Star Wars than a multi-million dollar Hollywood director and writer. So, we'll see about that.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: Finn and Poe, back in action together once again.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Location: Planet Dantooine

The command center was nice and clean by now, thanks to the help of several of Leia's officers and troops. She'd let the pilots continue working on the maintenance hangar, which was necessary to fixing up the U-Wing that was down there. Leia found that working on the communications relay was very relaxing, and mentally stimulating enough that she was able to just continue toying with the device along with an old friend, R2-D2. And thanks mainly to R2 the comms system was now operational within the confines of their new base. The intercom system now worked, a bit scratchy but it worked all the same. Long range comms were still out, but the rest of the base started to come together with reports of the plumbing being up and running, power to the hangar doors was restored, and the extent of the base was fully explored with a hidden bunker in a cave being their access to the surface, which was covered by wild nerf, a very common source of meat. But the kitchen needed fixing up before they decided to go bring down as big a game as a nerf.

However, she had a couple good engineers that survived the fighting and were working on the kitchen's cooking apparatuses with gusto. The promise of fresh meat did wonders to men whose energy and morale was at an all-time low. It actually gave Leia a bit of a chuckle thinking about how that was a common thread to all men. As she worked R2 rolled around, working constantly until he had fixed something to his liking. When Leia finished with the main comms station in the command center she snapped the panel back into place.

"Well old friend, let's see if this works," Leia sighed as she hit the power button.

The controls hummed to life, and she looked down to see the yellow frequency input waves coming in clearly, she checked to be sure that the output transceivers were ready to take any frequencies and transmitters were checked as well. It was fixed and ready for use. Leia shut it down after a couple system checks, and was more than happy to lean back in her chair and take a quick break and close her eyes.

The door opened partway through her rest, and she opened her eyes to see her right-hand woman, Lieutenant Connix. She had a great big smile on her face, clearly something good had happened.

"Lieutenant, you have something to share I assume?" Leia asked.

"Yes ma'am," the young officer nodded, "We've just gotten the gas lines working, we now have hot water and a way to cook food and the cooler is now holding its temperature. Sergeant Andel is requesting permission to go hunt a Nerf to prepare something to eat for tonight."

"Permission granted," Leia nodded, "But Sergeant Andel will first get the kitchen and mess hall cleaned up."

"Yes ma'am," the lieutenant said with a giggle.

"What other rations do we have?" Leia asked, the topic of supplies now coming to the forefront.

"We have several small boxes of old powdered bread and vitamin patty portions, it's not much but it'll keep bellies full for a time," Lieutenant Connix responded, "We can stretch them to last for a month or two at the very most."

"Oh Rey won't like that," Leia smiled, "That was almost all she ate since she was on Jakku."

"We can explore the riverbed, there might be some plants there we can forage," Connix offered, "Just to provide some diversity."

"After we get our security system and a watch set up organize a party, you and two others. See what you can find for wild edibles."

"Yes ma'am."

Leia nodded as a dismissal, and the young woman left the room. C3P0 then entered right behind her.

"General, I have excellent news, I have successfully restored power to the cleaner droids and linked them to the base's restored broadcasting system. They will begin tidying this horrid place up in not time," the protocol droid said proudly.

"Thank you Threepio," Leia said softly, but paused before asking something, "We've been together a long time, haven't we?" she asked softly, "You, me, Artoo, it's been a long road."

R2 heard the talk and rolled over, beeping in response.

"It had been, many, many years," C3P0 agreed, "Many good friends come and gone."

"And we're still fighting the same war," Leia bemoaned, "Nothing has changed, nothing has been won. I want this to end Threepio, I want these people to be able to live in a galaxy that doesn't have to fear an Empire, the First Order, the Sith. I want to end this suffering."

"If I may, these soldiers of yours are dedicated. I detect very few discernable quantitative differences between them and the soldiers that we fought alongside those many years ago," Threepio said quickly.

"I know. I see many of the same faces in different people," Leia smiled, "Which is why I know they can win this war."

"The odds of that are-," Threepio about started to say but a glare from Leia made him stop and look down and to the side, "I know, you don't want to know the odds."

Location: Planet Lah'mu

The group was supposed to be there for a simple heist of weapons and equipment to sell on the black market. New Republic arsenals were being abandoned, and Bala-Tik knew that they had an opportunity to take a fortune into the Guavian Death Gang's warehouses. They now had a real opportunity to take some Republic personnel to the First Order for a decent bounty. Not only that but he very easily could see some real opportunity for advancement within the gang for his revenge on Solo by bringing the Millennium Falcon back to their headquarters, a trophy and a warning to those who would swindle their organization. This was something that his second in command, a younger gangster by the name of Arka that Bala-Tik didn't particularly like very much, had reminded him.

Needless to say, things were going fairly well. The only question in his mind was if he wouldn't get a better price for the women from slavers who were always on the lookout for attractive young girls, and these pilots certainly fit the profile for a hefty sale once they were put into a revealing outfit to get the bids coming in. First, he needed to be sure that the tales were true, that Solo was indeed dead. If so, then they'd take the Republic personnel they'd captured and get some prices from the First Order and get them all sold for some credits. If the girls could be sold for more, then he'd take them to a slave market, dress them accordingly, and get them sold just the same way as he planned to sell the Republic weapons he was seeing around him.

"Here, weapons," his second said as he walked to the open gate, "Here's where they were loading. Any signs of Solo?" the mob lieutenant asked his six security troops.

"Not yet," Bala-Tik shook his head, "Perhaps the rumors were right, maybe he is dead."

"Probably, otherwise we would've heard something by now, Solo's no coward," Arka smirked as he waved one of the troops to look into the vault. He didn't notice the E-WEB Heavy Blaster Cannon set up with a motion detector rigged to the trigger.

One of them arrived at the gate, and then a loud blaster shot and a dash of red sent the cyborg soldier flying across the gate. Another ran in and got blasted in the back from above by a blaster bolt coming from above and behind them. The group turned and saw a single figure firing a pistol into their ranks, but missed.

"Solo!" Bala-Tik roared, and fired a concussive blast up into the railing. A hole was merely blasted in the duracrete.

The remaining soldiers took off after them, firing into the railing at the figure masked in the darkness but a second figure blasted the leading pursuer in the chest with a blue bolt cutting the security soldier off and sent him tumbling down a few metal stairs.

"They boobytrapped the armory, an E-WEB was set up in the vault," Arak wheezed, he was a fat individual, not very well suited to this kind of work.

"Clever buggers," Bala-Tik growled unhappily as he peered around the corner, but as he did that a blaster bolt zinged right by his head and struck his fourth soldier who tumbled back into a stack of boxes and sent them falling onto the ground.

"Don't move!" a man's voice warned him and his last two troops.

Bala-Tik leveled his blaster to see that Arak had a blaster to his head, and the holder was a familiar face, FN-2187, the traitor. A fairly sizeable bounty was being offered for his head.

"Well, just my luck," Bala-Tik smiled, and Arak's eyes widened as the Guavian Death Gang lieutenant fired a concussive blast the struck his own second right in the chest and threw him back into Finn and leveled and pinned him to the ground.

Finn had the breath knocked out of him, not having expected the guy to just blow away his own guy with so little hesitance. Not only that he would have never expected the blow to have lifted the portly individual off his feet and squarely onto him. He groaned as the two Guavian soldiers stepped over to him and leveled their blasters at him, his body was pinned and he only had his arms free. He tried to draw his GLIE-44 Blaster Pistol, but the two blasters of the soldiers were facing him.

"The First Order will pay us a hefty price for you," Bala-Tik responded.

"You have to get me there first," Finn snarled.

"Oh we don't need you, just yer head," the gangster smirked, and leveled his blaster to Finn's chest.

"You might find your head missing though," Poe's voice threatened, coming up behind the gangster and had his blaster against the man's temple.

"And what exactly do you think's gonna happen here? You'll order my men to stand down and you'll just waltz out with whatever ya like?" Bala-Tik laughed.

"No I was figuring you would," Poe retorted.

"Fat chance of that mate," he said quickly, but Poe jabbed the barrel of his weapon against his temple.

"Do it."

But Bala-Tik had a surprise in store, when he remained silent and backed away just a bit he knew Poe would jab at him with his blaster again. And he did so, but when he jabbed forward Bala-Tik ducked and raised the butt of his blaster up and into Poe's arms, knocking them up and knocked the blaster pistol in his hands free and then tried aiming into Poe's head. But the pilot was quick on the uptake, and grabbed the concussion rifle's barrel and spun to the left, using Bala-Tik's own momentum against him and threw the man into the concrete wall. One of the security soldiers turned to fire at Poe, but Finn snatched the dead gangter's blaster and fired into the side of the cyborg who dropped. This came at a cost however, as the last remaining now fired down into the body that Finn lifted to cover him. The blaster bolts burnt holes into the portly man's body, and Finn was suddenly thankful for the former man's obesity, otherwise he'd be very dead. He lifted his blaster up and fired into the cyborg's leg, and he crumpled down and fired three more times and killed him.

"Finn!" Poe yelled as he struggled with Bala-Tik, who was quite an adept fighter.

He threw several punches the gang lieutenant blocked each with rapid forearm blocks and then Poe tried kicking at him to throw his balance off. But the response was as swift as it was effective. With a kick to block Bala-Tik held it and then threw his foot down and caught Poe in the opposite knee and made yell in pain and collapse to one knee. Bala-Tik lifted his other leg and brought it into Poe's face once and sent him sprawling onto the ground.

Then Finn sprinted over, and grabbed the gangster around the waist lifted him up and spun and slung him viciously into the stack of crates that had already been fallen. This dislodged the blaster he held from his hands and wrapped its sling loosely around his neck. This didn't deter the man, who was proving to be an adept fighter and he lifted an empty box up with one foot and kicked it at Finn with some velocity. It hit the former Stormtrooper in the chest and knocked him back allowing the man to get up. Finn threw a punch that Bala-Tik evaded with a sidestep and punched across Finn's chin and then jabbed him in the chest as Finn threw a wild right that he ducked under. Finn reeled from the strike and Bala-Tik threw another left cross that spun the other man around. But Poe rose with a crate lid in his hands and clubbed the man across the back of the head making him stumble forward and Finn followed up with a left haymaker that completely knocked the man unconscious.

"Yeah! How you gonna deliver my head now?!" Finn roared in triumph looking down at his opponent.

"Tone it down, tone it down. Remember he about kicked both our asses," Poe reminded him, feeling the blood dribbling from his nose, wincing at the pain.

"Yeah, and no one needs to know about that part," Finn said through pants as he dug through the pockets of the gangsters, and tossed their weapons away and bound Bala-Tik's hands behind his back.

"Agreed."

The two then grabbed their own weapons and ran back towards the hangar, opening several doors on the way through which was very much relieving to them, because that would have prevented them from being heard. But that wasn't to be, the cyborg troops of the Guavian Death Gang knew all about the engagement through their cybernetic implants and saw the statuses of their comrades blink out. They knew that something had gone wrong. However, due to the mass of duracrete between them and their dead comrades they had no idea what exactly had transpired.

In the hangar the remaining fourteen soldiers now started to try and figure out what to do, none were trained in leadership nor were they granted authority in doing so. This gave Rey her moment, she closed her eyes, and concentrated on her cuffs. It was time to make a move. She envisioned the lock on the cuffs, focused upon it, and then felt the click against her wrists and the pressure relented immediately. She could have gotten up and fought immediately, but she would've been alone in fighting fourteen enemy soldiers, and she was unarmed. So she started to figure out a plan, and then she saw BB-8, and cocked her head in curiosity at what the droid was doing.

She could see that BB-8 was going back forth between the different T-70 X-Wings, quietly fiddling with them and then moving onto the next to the one. Rey had no idea what BB-8 had in mind, but on closer inspection she saw a thin command cable being trailed from each X-Wing. She and the others were intrigued by the droid's activities, and some of the pilots figured out his intentions. Jessika started quickly trying to get the tape off her mouth to warn the others, she knew what BB-8 was trying to do. The tape peeled off, and she gasped aloud.

"Watch for the blasters on those X-Wings, get down when they deploy," she warned at a whisper.

"Whmm?" Rey asked through the tape over mouth.

The others nodded after their minds ran through the information provided to them. Rey wasn't all that familiar with the T-70 X-Wing, so what Jessika said went over her head, but she decided to nod anyway. It was more than likely that, knowing BB-8, the firing would miss her. But her own plans were changing, she figured that BB-8 was going to use the X-Wings as weapons, and she needed to make certain that all the enemy soldiers were going to be in the open to be able to be killed.

At this point a single Guavian Death Gang pilot ran inside, holding a datapad, he showed it to a trio of the red-uniformed soldiers and spoke quickly and quietly. He then pointed to Rey, and her gut dropped as she realized that she'd been found out. One of the soldiers there waved for her to be brought over. A single Guavian soldier grabbed her by the arm and lifted her up. But Rey revealed her trump card, and grabbed his blaster by the barrel and snapped her hand up and sent the man flying into the wall headfirst, snapping his neck and blew a hole into another's chest and turned to face the others, but she was already being shot at. The young Jedi ducked and fired back from behind a cart of crates and fell back to the door into the warehouse. It didn't take long, and she was inside the warehouse blaster fire pummeling the concrete, she hated having to depart and leave the others and refused to retreat any further. However footfalls caught her attention and she turned with the blaster in hand and she saw Poe and Finn rush in.

"Whoa, whoa!" Poe pleaded and Rey lowered her weapon.

Finn rushed over and peeled the tape off rapidly.

"Ow!" she yelped, rubbing her cheek.

"You alright?" Finn asked.

"Yeah, but the others…" Rey said and then a series of rapid blaster fire got their attention and they all feared the worst.

"No!" Poe roared as he ran in, blaster raised, but was amazed by the sight that confronted him.

All the Guavian Death Gang troops were dead, smoking holes in their bodies as they lay on the ground and the Resistance members still bound against the wall were laying on their sides, starting to get back up, untouched by the flurry of firing that had struck their captors. They were in the clear.

"Captain!" Jessika called out, "We're alright get their ship!"

"Rey!" Poe called out, snatching the helmet he had left by one of the X-Wings and pulled it on. He heard the warbling engines of the Guavian Death Gang ship outside, and knew that it had to be dealt with.

"I've never flown one of these before!" she reminded him.

"It's easy! If you can fly the Falcon you can fly an X-Wing," he assured her as he got into the closest one and Rey followed up the ladder to another one next to it.

She had grabbed her new white helmet off of the ground and pulled it on, and dropped into the pilot's seat and tried remembering the layout of an X-Wing's controls from the T-65's she would run across from time to time on Jakku. It all came back to her and she hit the required controls to close the canopy and started up the engines, which hummed to life and glowed. It was an amazing feeling to be behind one of these craft, the elite of the starfighter corps were always seen as X-Wing jockeys. Now she was on her way to becoming one of them. And she was intent on preserving this X-Wing, and lifted of gently, and followed Poe who zipped out of the hangar and after the Guavian freighter.

The X-Wing passed through the hangar door and was powered forward instantly upon her pushing of the throttle. Rey's petite form was thrown into the seat and she smiled brightly, and followed Poe's engine lights into the sky where she saw the slow lumbering 100 meter long Cargo Empress-Class Superfreighter trying to escape. The ship was an old obsolete design with weak shields and a weak hull. But the Guavian Death Gang didn't satisfy themselves with this and modified this ship with four rapid fire dual laser autoturrets and improved its hull and shields with additional components and put two outboard engine nacelles from a C-ROC Gonzati-Class Cruiser onto the middle front of the ship. Rey could see, even from a distance, that it was painted with red and black, and had a Guavian Death Gang logo on the middle of its ventral hull. It was no TIE Fighter, but destroying it was needed.

"Alright Rey, this ship is as crummy as freighters get, but don't underestimate those autoturrets," Poe warned, "Lock on with torpedoes and follow me, target those engines and it'll take the plunge."

"Copy," Rey responded, and fiddled with trying to get her S-Foils opened, but the T-65's she was familiar with had a different control board for that, "How do I open my S-Foils?" she asked.

"Blue button on your throttle," Poe informed her, "On the end of the hand lever."

Rey felt the button, pushed it and saw her S-Foils open, and she and Poe now closed within weapons range. And the red laser fire of the turrets on the ship zipped between them. Poe evaded easily, and fired a pair of proton torpedoes, and the purple projectiles smashed into the ship's right front side. The explosions tore the makeshift nacelle from the side of the ship and the vessel began listing quickly and Rey double tapped her torpedo trigger that was below the control nob on the flat of the face of the joystick and fired her own torpedoes when she lined up her HUD and heard the beeping of a locked warhead. Unfortunately but she hadn't been locked onto the proper setting, and her proton torpedoes simply blew a gaping hole into the middle of the ship sending fire and smoke belching from the ship as they passed it.

"You weren't locked on," Poe informed her.

"It was beeping!" Rey replied.

"You were locked onto the ship's profile, not the heat of the engines, flick the nob on the top of the stick to the left that's your heat seeking mode, left is profile lock, bottom toggles safety and top toggles torpedo speed," Poe instructed.

"Got it," Rey nodded when she saw the change in her HUD upon feeling the click of the rubber nob on top of her joystick by her thumb.

"Alright another pass, let's make sure that ship doesn't get away," Poe smirked as he banked around, seeing Rey keeping pace. He saw the freighter, smoking and now starting to lose altitude. But before either of them could fire the ship suddenly exploded violently, tearing the ship in two and sent both halves plummeting into disintegrating pieces, "Or it'll blow up and save us the munitions."

He pulled away, watching for any signs of escape pods, but the Cargo Empress-Class was infamous for its completely unsafe design by putting the cockpit and escape pods on opposite sides of the hundred-meter-long ship, a very, very unsafe design practice. So his examination yielded nothing, and he was satisfied with that.

"Alright, Rey, how's it feel to fly and X-Wing?" Poe asked her, coming up next to the newly-christened pilot.

"It's amazing, I never thought I'd ever fly one of these before," she said giddily, and exhibited this with yanking back on the stick and rolling over and dove and came up a few hundred feet over the water with Poe easily staying with her.

"It's a rush like no other that's for sure," Poe agreed, "Now, let's get back, we have to finish what we came to do."

"Right," Rey sighed, unhappy at having to leave the cockpit after having just gotten into the groove.

"Don't worry, we might be able to come back for more fighters and equipment, there's more flying to do, hopefully," Poe responded with a laugh, "Plus, you need a droid for that fighter."

"I suppose," Rey agreed, and Poe banked hard and headed back in to the warehouse hangar. The two X-Wings landed victoriously to see the four Republic soldiers tossing the Guavian Death Gang bodies into a pile outside and poked at the fragile cliff to bury them in landslide dirt.

"We're good to keep loading! Let's hurry it up!" Poe ordered, "We've got a war to fight."

"I'd hate to leave these," Shriv sighed as he looked at the other fighters still there, "Seems a pity."

"Oh I'm not leaving these for these gangster scumbags to come back for," Poe growled, tapping his foot as he thought of ideas, "Hey Corporal?! You said you had a bunch of BB units right?"

"Yes sir," the NCO replied as he and his comrades continued working.

"Okay…okay I have an idea," Poe said as he thought through an old Republic protocol for their droids, "BB units have a preprogrammed flight function, but they were never meant as a primary pilot, they don't have combat functions as base programming, it was meant as a backup in case the pilot was incapacitated. But…they might be able to just move them from here to there. That can free us to pilot these shuttles, and bring more equipment and supplies back to base."

"It'll take time to program all those droids to do that," Zay responded, placing her hands on her hips.

"Not if we directly rig those BB units to a computer network and BB-8 can download the instructions directly to them with the base mainframe offering a boost to speed," Finn suggested.

"I can help with that," Rey offered.

"BB-8, get to it buddy," Poe ordered, "In the meantime, the rest of you load up those shuttles. We've gotta hurry this up. If the Guavian Death Gang found it the First Order won't be far behind."

"Right, BB-8 let's go," Rey agreed and with BB-8 ran off, aiming to get this new plan done so she and the others could off the planet, no sense in getting caught again. Next time they might not be so lucky.

Rey followed BB-8 who had downloaded the base schematics and followed the beeping droid straight to the command center. BB-8 smashed through the old chairs and plugged into a computer jack, the screens started to show the numerous BB units going through programming and status bars showed up. BB-8 then beeped to Rey. He needed her to unpack the units from their storage crates.

"Right, you lot can do everything but unpack yourselves?" Rey teased, and BB-8 beeped angrily, "Oi! That's uncalled for!" she said and moved on.

She ran to the shelves, and saw the labels for the BB units, dozens of them. She pulled them off, opened the containers and saw the red and gray droids blinking red on their "eye", they were readying for activation. It was a very physical process. Soon Rey was stepping over dozens of BB units, all self-balancing and awaiting orders. She could tell that seeing this horde of droids rolling out would be quite a sight.

"Alright, all the BB units are ready for instructions," she said into her comm.

"Good timing, we just got a fire lit under us, First Order Star Destroyer, they just dropped out of hyperspace," Poe warned everyone, "BB-8, I need you to reprogram some of those droids to fly the shuttles, pilots we'll take the fighters, we need to get those shuttles loaded right now!"

"It's possible the Destroyer's not here for the depot at all, this is only and old and small and classified facility right?" Finn asked over the comms.

"Yeah, right," Poe replied.

"Then First Order protocol is to assert dominance over the main population centers' defenses, does Dantooine have any defenses?" Finn continued.

"No, none, the Republic never got around to fortifying the planet, it didn't matter too much," Poe responded.

"Then we might have time, this place is well hidden, and is remote, no reason for the First Order to come here looking for us. And with the resources of one destroyer it will take at least a day to find us if they follow protocol and sweep out from the population centers," Finn further explained.

BB-8 now interrupted, he had access to scanners, and his response was clear evidence to Finn's own analysis.

"He said the destroyer's descending onto the capital, that's thousands of miles away," Rey sighed in relief, but she knew it wasn't too nice to be thankful for the subjugation of a free city.

"Alright, keep working, pack everything we can, I want to empty as much of this depot as we can, stuff crates in every nook and cranny you can find," Poe ordered, "Even if we have to dump contents to make room do it."

"We've got four shuttles loaded already with ammunition, weapons, equipment, and supplies, it won't take very long to get the rest loaded with eleven of us helping," Shriv replied, "Recommend we stick to munitions and parts, especially for the X-Wings."

"Load two of the shuttles with torpedoes and the other two with parts. How many flightsuits and flight helmets do we have?" Poe asked.

"We've got at least a hundred of each," Zay responded, "We've packed the Falcon with those and infantry gear as well. Should be enough to equip a couple companies."

"Last of the arsenal's being emptied Captain," Niv informed him, "We've got all of the blasters and explosives and ammunition stowed now, and all the dead gangsters are gone."

"Wait a minute, all of them? We didn't kill one of them," Poe reminded the others, seeking clarification.

Rey listened to all of this as she lowered the last of the droid boxes and reached down to lift the ball-shaped utility droid from its foam wrapping. She'd been so wrapped up in her work that her senses weren't all that attuned due to the focus of lifting boxes from high up and gently bringing them down, but as she lifted the droid up and out of its crate she felt cold dread build up suddenly. Turning a sharp blow to the side of her head alerted her to the danger at the same moment she was caught by it. She fell to the ground in a heap and groaned painfully, trying to get her hands out from under her. Rey attempted to look back to see what had hit her and she could say she wasn't necessarily surprised. Standing over her was Bala-Tik, nose bloody, and eyes filled with rage, in his hand he had a metal pipe. He now recognized this girl, she was the First Order's primary person of interest, the biggest bounty in the galaxy was placed on her head, the Jedi.

"Thought we wouldn't figure it out eh?" Bala-Tik said as he wiped the blood from his nose, "You almost got away didn't ya?"

"Rey, what's your status?" Finn asked on her comm, and she tried pulling her blaster to blast this gangster.

Focusing clearly was incredibly difficult, her vision was blurry, and she felt blood starting to drip onto her temple and on her face. The blow had been a glancing one, but she'd still been hit in the head by a metal pipe. Not many people could take a blow like that and be perfectly fine immediately. When she reached for her pistol Bala-Tik stepped hard onto her arm.

"I hear it's not the First Order itself that wants you so badly, I hear it's the Supreme Leader, I can see why. Seems an awful pity, maybe when on our way to the First Order I'll…" he threatened, smiling sadistically.

But Rey was in luck, at that moment the floor full of BB units gave a sudden and rapid series of startup beeps, and each and every one of the forty plus droids swiveled their heads and beeped, looking straight at Bala-Tik. The swarm of droids all at once deployed their electro-shock stunners from the sides of their heads and as one swarmed at the Gangster firing into him with powerful electronic surges. The sounds of his screams and the beeps and zaps and rolling metal balls filled Rey's ears. Soon, out of sight, Bala-Tik fell, and a continuous stream of electricity sent smoke billowing from his barely-living body.

The droids rolled out, still in the beeping booping swarm that they'd activated in. The group left the room, and Rey staggered to her feet as BB-8 rolled in, beeping at her.

"Very funny, but your kind still can't get out of a storage crate," she groaned, pressing her hand to the growing lump on her head and felt it wet with blood that was coating her temple and dribbled onto her chin, "Let's get outta here."

She managed to regain her bearings and only had a horrific headache when she got to the hangar where Zay saw her first as she pulled on her own helmet.

"Rey what happened?" the raven-haired girl asked.

"Bala-Tik, he got loose and clubbed me, but the droids stunned him," Rey waved off, "I'm okay though, let's go."

"Here's your helmet then," Zay smirked in a mix of respect and humor and tossed Rey's fresh white helmet over to her.

Rey caught it, but her left hand, which had been covered in blood, left a red handprint on the left side of the helmet's main forward shell. She looked at it a moment, and decided she kind of liked that look, and made a mental note to wash off the blood and put a handprint on that same spot. Around her the last munitions, equipment, and supplies were being loaded into the shuttles. The BB units that had been activated had swarmed to their X-Wings and gotten scooped right into the craft, and in a wave the engines ignited. One zipped out to the outside, where Rey remembered her own X-Wing was parked.

"Okay, everyone load up, we're getting outta here," Poe ordered, waving a hand in the air, wearing a new flightsuit for himself along with a white new helmet that he would need to customize for himself.

He waited for Rey, and saw the blood.

"Bala-Tik?"

"Yeah, said he wanted to cash in the 'largest bounty in the galaxy' for me," she responded, slipping the helmet on, wincing at the pain.

"Can you fly?"

"Of course," she responded as the first X-Wings lifted off and she climbed up into the cockpit, and the BB unit in the astromech slot greeted her with a pilot beep and boop, "Nice to meet you BB-3C, I guess you're mine now?"

"Talk with your droid on the way!" Poe teased as she nimbly climbed into his own starfighter.

"Don't tell me how to talk with my droid!" Rey called out as her canopy began closing.

The X-Wings now poured from the hangar, and Rey watched the continuous stream climb into the sky, falling into formation as the shuttles joined the crowd of rapidly accelerating craft. Rey now easily piloted her X-Wing to join them. Soon the Millennium Falcon finished their little fleet and she could see that they were in the clear.

"All ships, let's head home, we got what we came for," Poe declared proudly, and in a outpour of jumps all forty X-Wings darted away out of sight, and soon Rey joined them, step one of the Resistance's comeback was complete.

 **Well that's a wrap for this chapter. I got a few chapters of A Brutal Reality done and felt a rush of writing fever and got a chapter of this churned out.**

 **Rey got her first run on an X-Wing, hopefully I can develop a droid for her as well. I didn't like the new X-Wing design when it first came out, but it has really grown on me, and frankly it is a natural military progression that makes sense, the flight characteristics are much smoother, faster, and make the fighter significantly lighter. All-in-all I like the T-70 X-Wing. Next chapter I am looking forward to developing Zay a bit, I was a bit disappointed they didn't have much time to work on her character in Battlefront II, if there's a comic with her in it I'd love to see if there's more to the character. As for Rey I think she and Zay could end up becoming a pair of good friends, seems like Rey's never had a girl friend, the ratio has been towards the males (Except in monopoly of military leadership, but that's a nasty topic for another time and place).**

 **Next Chapter Preview: The Resistance has its new tools, time to salvage from the Republic's ruins.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Location: Planet Dantooine

The fighters landed first, and were followed by the Montura Class Shuttles. The hangar was indeed large enough for them to land but only just so. The Falcon barely got its landing gear down within the hangar, and the maintenance lifts were now more important to fix than ever, they couldn't operate from here if they had to rearrange every time an X-Wing or shuttle had to depart. So Zay and Rey volunteered to take the chance of climbing up the walls to fix the lifts.

The forty-eight BB units that had piloted their X-Wings home were rolling around in all directions, going from one repair and maintenance duty to another. They far outnumbered the twenty-four biological members of the Resistance who finally were taking a few moments to get rest. All had been in a constant state of work for quite a while. But Rey was feeling invigorated and had an idea of how to fix the lift. She'd gotten back into her usual clothes and was now fastening a harness around her hips and chest.

"Alright, this shouldn't take long," Zay said as she came over, tucking several tools into her belt.

"Yeah, I think it just needs some grease and to realign," Rey nodded, pursing her lips as she looked up at the bottom of the lift platform, where she saw a sliver of light on one side, signaling it was probably torqueing against the lift bars, preventing any movement.

"Let's get up there then," Zay said as she hooked up to the lines that had been thrown up and over the beams overhead that the lifts that moved heavy items around the maintenance hangar were built into.

"Race ya," Rey challenged her, and the two began climbing rapidly up the ladder as a pair of pilots below them kept the ropes tight so that they didn't take a tumble.

At this point Poe walked down the spiral staircase and saw the two girls practically flying up the metal bar ladders. He was pretty impressed at what he saw with the two of them racing up to get the lift repaired. The two got there and he watched curiously as Rey reached over and tugged a bit on the joining of the lift to the actual hydraulic column.

"Try dropping it a bit!" Rey called out, wanting to see where it stood. If it worked and but needed levelling that would be easy enough to do, but she needed to hear a few things.

The lift gears clanked and groaned, and the whining noise of mechanics not working got Zay and Rey's joint attention.

"My side's dipped a bit, it might be jammed on the column," Zay called out.

"Let's see if we can manually level it," Rey suggested, reaching over to lube up the dried up columns with fresh grease.

"How'd you learn this much about mechanics?" Zay asked as she pushed out underneath the lift, shining a flashlight into the joining point, trying to gauge the state of the mechanics of the lifting engines.

"I grew up on Jakku, scavenging the ship graveyard, you either learned what parts were usable or you starved," Rey said as she started to move into the lift's mechanics like Zay, greasing up parts as she got to them.

"Sounds like a rough childhood," Zay sighed as she continued to work on the gears and other mechanical bits, wrapping a sealing tape around a potentially cracked pipe.

"Wasn't fun," Rey agreed.

"No time for a social life?"

"Not really," Rey responded nonchalantly.

"And I assume that included interaction with the opposite sex," Zay said with a teasing smile.

"I've never had a relationship if that's what your driving at," Rey rolled her eyes, remembering Finn's question about her having a boyfriend.

"That's exactly what I'm driving at," Zay teased.

"The answer, like I said," Rey shook her head, reaching up to check to see how tight a pipe connection was, "Was, and is, no. What about you?"

"Me? Well…" Zay said as she thought about the still stinging memory of her father, "I grew up the daughter of a pair of former Imperial special operations officers. Dangerous ones. My dad was okay with dating, but my mom…oof, she wasn't all that wild about the prospect. Plus we were never in one place long enough to really develop anything of note."

"What did your parents do? After the war I mean?" Rey asked.

"Chartered cargo using the Corvus, which was home for us, at least it was until the First Order destroyed it at Vardos, nearly taking me with it. They killed my dad on that ship, left it to lure us in," Zay said quietly, remembering with great sadness that she never got to lay her father to rest herself. She remembered with great bitterness how much it had weighed on her mother.

"I'm sorry, we'll find justice for him," Rey said as she stopped working a moment.

"My mom took her own justice, she killed the man who killed my father," Zay said proudly, "And saved me. I'm here to make her sacrifice count for something."

"You've done alright by her so far," Rey smiled.

"Not personally, all I've done is search an empty base, load some crates, and get nearly sold as a slave by a gang," Zay grumbled sourly.

"I was there too, and I nearly got sent to the First Order. I'd rather not think of what Kylo Ren would do to me if he caught me again," Rey shrugged, and got back to the ladder, checking her work again, "Let's try it now."

Zay got back to the ladder and the lift from below was worked by a BB unit who spliced into the controls. The droid successfully got the one side to level off, and then the lift started to descend, and Rey and Zay both jumped down onto it as it went below them.

"That'll do," Zay nodded, undoing her harness and Rey did the same.

"Nice job!" Poe said from above, "Let's get four of the shuttles and half the fighters down here and we can call it a day. There's a couple nerf roasting right now, they'll be done by the time we are, so let's get going."

"The lift is gonna get a workout," Zay said as it reached the bottom. It then started back up, and they reached the main hangar level in no time.

The pilots all got to work, guiding one of the Monturas onto the lift, and then the lift dropped slowly with the shuttle on it. The shuttle fit, seeing as it was boxy, with two stubby wings in the rear. It was hardly an agile acrobat. Its design bore more resemblance to a brick in that regard. Rey was taught how to manage one of these unwieldly beasts as they worked and worked one of them onto the lift and dropped it down. When she was making her way back up she saw Finn speaking with Poe, and the two had to leave. But she stayed on task.

"She's awake?" Finn asked Poe, the two friends walking to the medical bay after their lone medic had found Poe and informed him.

"Yeah, the first person she asked for was you," Poe responded.

"Really?" Finn asked, not really amazed, but certainly surprised.

The two got there, and Leia was already sitting next to Rose, who had a few bandages plastered on her face and had an IV in her arm with the old medical droid busying itself organizing its new medical gear along with a pair of beeping BB units working on a bacta tank in the back of the fairly large medical room. It was fortunate this facility had a large well-equipped medical facility. The metal walls and tiled floors were different than anywhere else in the facility, all freshly cleaned and scrubbed by a trio of continuously working sanitation droids with several manipulating arms buffing out the facility to make it sanitary. The constant buzzing and movement was clearly getting on Rose's nerves. But it was forgotten when Finn and Poe walked in.

"Finn!" she said with a great big smile on her face.

"Hey Rose, General," he nodded in respect to Leia who smiled and nodded back, "So, you feeling better?" Finn asked.

"Yeah, the General was just telling me what happened, you saved me," she sighed happily.

"You were the one who said that we have to save what we love to win," Finn recited back to her.

"Yeah, I did. So, what's been the story so far?"

"We uh…were saved by Luke Skywalker, then again by Rey," Finn said after trying to figure out how to phrase it.

"How many?" Rose asked, almost afraid to know.

"Eighteen, twenty-eight now," Finn said sourly.

"We're rebuilding," Poe informed her, "We found a warehouse of Republic reserve equipment and some soldiers guarding it. They're with us now."

"That few huh?" Rose asked, saddened by their extraordinarily severe losses.

"But growing," Poe assured her.

"One step at a time," Leia added, "Which reminds me," she said, leaning back in her chair, "We've got to get more recruits and I hate to say it, more money. Cash is as good a tool as an X-Wing Commander."

"Commander, I get my rank back?"

"You've learned the required lesson," Leia nodded with a smile, "Plus that's the rank the people recognize you by. It serves the bigger picture."

"I know a place full of money that deserves new owners," Finn responded, winking to Rose.

"Canto Bight?" Poe asked, "Oh I like this plan."

"Canto Bight's high on security," Leia informed them, "They protect their money jealously. The Casinos will take more than a run and gun strategy to rob successfully."

"She's right," Rose sighed, "Canto Bight's got a top-notch security system and a large police department. You saw that for yourself Finn."

"Yeah, so how do we get ourselves in and get what we're after and how many ships will we need?"

"It'll require a more delicate touch Commander Dameron," Leia smiled, "Specifically, subterfuge and cunning. No blowing stuff up."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"So, we're getting some reconnaissance before robbing them?" Finn surmised.

"You and Rose apparently are known there, Rey is perhaps too well-known for the fact she's got a hefty bounty, but Zay and you are not particularly wanted or recognizable. You two will go undercover and recon the area and get us an idea for how to accomplish our mission. Rey will also go along with you to try and rally people to our cause from the lower classes. Shriv will be her backup. Your pilots will stand by in case any of you need extraction."

"So we will get to blow up stuff?" Poe asked.

Leia rolled her eyes, and tapped Poe on the forehead with her cane, "Subterfuge and cunning first, Commander. Blowing stuff up is a distraction or means of extraction in case of emergency."

"Roger that," Poe responded sourly, nodding at his orders.

"It'll take time to get into position to do that," Leia informed them, "We'll need access to at least some money and some of the resources of one of the rich and affluent if we're to avoid suspicion."

"Wait, so to rob a place because we need money and resources, we need money and resources?" Finn asked in confusion.

"On Chandrila I still have friends," Leia said in response, "They won't have the same access that they once had, but they will at least be able to help."

"Chandrila is also a world that is very Pro-Republic, we may even find some disgruntled ex-soldiers and maybe even some pilots," Poe added.

"Which we need, quite desperately," Leia nodded in confirmation.

"Bounty hunters won't be expecting any of us there," Finn suggested, remembering his time in the barracks during the many hours of down time prior to conflict spent reading down lists of planetary information, general information, but useful, "Chandrila's too far into the civilized section of society, not too welcoming for the likes of them."

"Finn, Rose, Poe, Shriv, Zay, Rey and Chewie will go," Leia told them, "You should be able to rally some recruits."

"Hold on, Rey?" Finn asked.

"She can handle herself," Rose reminded him.

"I'm inclined to agree with Finn, Rey's far too recognizable if we want to maintain a low profile," Poe responded.

"I may have a solution for that issue," Leia smirked, "Call Rey in, it's time for a little makeover."

"What? Oh, oh…she's not gonna like that," Finn reminded them.

"No, but she's gonna need to have it done if she wants to get out and be useful," Leia reminded everyone, and she smiled warmly, and that was a nice sight, especially after they had seen many things that would erase such expressions from her face.

"What'd you have in mind ma'am?" Rose asked, quite curious.

"Han always kept some hair dye in the Falcon and Chewie has clippers," Leia said as she got up, "So, ready to hold her down boys?"

"Wait, is she gonna fight us?" Poe asked as he followed Leia out.

"I would," Leia grunted.

"But it's your idea," Poe reminded her.

"Never underestimate a girl's attachment to her hair."

In the mess hall, which was a high-ceiling chamber with a dining area of three rows of five long tables with bench seats and what appeared to be a bar on one end and a buffet style counter for handing out food from the visible kitchen. The eating area was down a couple stairs with a rail preventing those walking around or waiting in line from tripping and falling down into the serving area. Behind the fifteen-foot bar three rows of carved out shelves where there was a notable absence of alcoholic beverages. A few levers for dispensing drinks on tap were also present, and again no alcohol was present. Despite the haste to leave the previous Rebels hadn't neglected to leave their supply of booze. There were also several screens that were meant for projecting news, sports, or whatever those in the mess hall could get, these were being worked on by a pair of technicians standing on the back of the bar, fiddling with the wires to get the screens active. A trio of BB units were busying themselves attempting to service a derelict server droid, which was supposed to be doing the job of serving plates of food that matched dietary needs and still managed to ration food as efficiently as possible. But the job that Rey and Zay saw was far from complete, more parts were outside the lanky six-armed droid than were inside. It was classic example of just another thing that they would need to fix if they wanted to make this place fully operational.

"So much for a stiff drink," Zay grumbled sourly, looking at the depressingly empty bar.

"We'll figure it out, someone left a still hidden in a storage bay, we might try brewing up some white lightning for the base," one of the technicians working on the bar's screens said proudly.

"Why am I not surprised?" Rey rolled her eyes.

"Dad's old crew used to have a still," Zay said as she walked over along with Rey to the serving line, "That stuff could blind a rancor."

Thankfully this was where a stack of sectioned trays was cleaned and they each were served with some previously powdered add-water-and-cook mashed Corellian potatoes and boiled previously freeze-dried greens and a roll of protein bread and fake butter and several slices of barbecued nerf. The animal was clearly visible rotating on a spit over an open gas fire in the kitchen, with slices being cut from the animal to order. It was the one piece of fresh real food that they had on their plates. The two girls took a square cup that fit into their trays' top right corner and got some water.

"What's that?" Rey asked, pointing to a cold pitcher of blue liquid that was familiar, but she hadn't tried any. Seeing Master Skywalker get it fresh from the source hadn't been too appetizing.

"Blue milk, probably powdered like most of the rest of the stuff we have," Zay said as Rey decided to take a tentative pour of it into a second cup, "Ever tried it?"

"Didn't have much else besides water on Jakku. Sometimes I could trade for an old energy drink salvaged from one of the wrecks, but they were nasty."

"Military energy drinks aren't supposed to be appetizing," Zay shrugged.

"I guess," Rey replied as the two went and sat down at an empty table and Rey looked at her plate with some trepidation, this was the most varied and fresh food had ever been for her.

"Something wrong?" Zay asked as she cut up her meat into pieces.

"Just never had anything quite this fresh before, unless you count that big fish Luke caught," Rey replied as she took a bite.

The look on her face signaled a newfound appreciation for it. Zay laughed at the look on her face, but didn't press her on the subject. Growing up with as little as Rey had was not a subject that Zay wanted to prod, frankly it was depressing and they didn't need any more of that around here. Best to look forward to making a better future.

"So, you gonna change up that wardrobe?" Zay asked as they ate, Rey rather quickly and ravenously.

"Why what's wrong with it?" Rey asked though a full mouth.

"I don't know, just figured you'd might want some new clothes, I'd imagine you could use something with more pockets," Zay motioned to her current clothes, a bit warmer than her previous getup of gray shirt and pants with grey sleeves.

"Pockets would be nice," Rey agreed, looking at her clothes with a frown, noting pockets were particularly useful in general, "But I have pilot gear now. Which reminds me," she said as she drank some blue milk and her face contorted into a scowl at the funky texture, "Ugh, that's horrible."

"Told ya. Powdered isn't at all like fresh, you were saying?"

"My helmet, need to sit down and customize it, was thinking of doing a blue hand with the Resistance symbol in the palm in red. Figured then I could put the Jedi symbol on the other side," Rey continued.

"There's some spray paint around, you'll need to cut out an etching for it though," Zay said, familiar with how it was done.

"The Jedi symbol's gonna be tough, lots of stuff on it," Rey agreed.

"You're gonna be a Jedi?"

"Not like any Jedi before," Rey shrugged.

At this point Zay looked up as Poe, Finn, and finally Leia walked in. Leia held a hair trimmer and a bottle of hair dye, and she was looking at the two of them.

"Rey…" Leia called out, and Rey turned around and saw her holding the hair tools.

"What?" Rey furrowed her brow in confusion, then figured it out, "No! No, you're not cutting my hair!"

"Need to do it Rey," Leia shrugged.

"No…" Rey warned them, getting up and backing away.

Poe smirked as Leia motioned for him and Finn to go hold her.

"You either cooperate and it can look good or we can just buzz it," Leia warned her, giving the clippers a quick turn-on, buzzing them as a warning.

"No, I like my hair," Rey responded.

"I know, so do I, but if you want to be useful to the Resistance you need to make a few changes," Leia sighed, "Now sit down please."

"Don't fight us," Poe said.

"Poe be careful," Finn warned.

"I'm not going without a fight," Rey warned them all.

"Oh I was afraid of that," Finn groaned and nodded to Poe, who didn't quite know what they were in for, he then held an accusing finger pointed to Rey, "No sticks…"

"Don't need 'em," Rey said with confident grin.

"Oh boy," Zay rolled her eyes.

"Rey it's for your own good," Poe said as he walked towards her.

"Come on boys," Leia teased.

"Well I don't wanna hurt her," Poe responded over his shoulder.

"You won't," Rey said as she decided to just start it off and punched Poe in the face, across the jaw, sending the pilot stumbling back, landing on his butt a couple feet back.

"Oh come on," Finn groaned, and tried to grab for Rey.

"She punched me?!" Poe cried out, utterly stunned by the blow.

"You're lucky she doesn't have a stick!"

Rey swung another fist at him, but Poe ducked and grabbed Rey around her waist and lifted her into the air. She swung her legs wildly, and jabbed behind her with her elbows, getting pained grunts from Finn every time she hit him. He tried setting her down on a table, but faced Poe with her kicking feet, catching his friend in the chest and knocking him back into a table.

"You uh having some trouble there ace?" Zay asked as she looked down at Poe.

"You try fighting a Jedi."

"Come on Rey enough!" Finn said as she grabbed her cup of blue milk and then splashed him in the face.

"Oh, that's gross," Finn coughed.

"Huh. Guess it was a bad batch," Zay grunted, looking at her own cup.

Finn finally had Rey held by her arms and pinned to his chest. However she finally felt that she'd made her point, and stopped after grunting in annoyance.

"Alright! Fine, I'll do it," Rey growled.

"Thank you go ahead and sit down," Leia replied motioning to a table next to her.

"Jeez, you have pointy elbows," Finn grumbled as he let go, rubbing his abdomen.

The girl now sat down grumbling a couple of profanities. Rey crossed her arms and Leia walked over, and the clippers started buzzing.

"Now, we're gonna go for a shorter cut, and then we'll see how you look as a blonde."

"Great," Rey rolled her eyes and winced when she felt her hair starting to get cut, but it wasn't as though she was getting a buzz or even a pixie cut. Just trimming. But locks of hair fell to the ground, and she felt the difference, and didn't really like having to get rid of some of her hair.

"That'll be fine, pull it into a ponytail and you'll look good," Zay mentioned.

Rey frowned at her, and then Leia pulled out the blonde hair dye. She started to run the brush with the liquid in it through Rey's hair. It didn't take long before she felt the cooling effect of the concoction in her scalp. The blonde color soon stained her hair, and she went to a bathroom faucet and washed the remaining dye out of her hair. After drying it she looked in the mirror, and didn't quite like it but when she pulled the shortened hair behind her head she saw that it was indeed enough to change her appearance.

"Now we've got that done we can let you all in our course of action," Leia said to them all, sitting down.

"What're we doing now?" Zay asked.

"We need to reconnect with whatever allies we have left," Leia began.

"Ma'am, our allies abandoned us when we needed them most," one of the soldiers pointed out.

"So we go to them, make them choose," Poe declared.

"There are still soldiers pilots and officers of the Republic that are out there, waiting for someone to start the new Rebellion. Those who didn't die in the fall of the Republic may still be willing to join a cause," Finn added, "We'll find them, and give them that cause."

"We are the spark, they are the tinder," Leia said proudly, "Those of us who stay will have a place to make sure that those who join this fight will have what is needed. We'll send some of you to recruit new soldiers, scrounge for supplies, and above all spread word that there is still a fight to be had. The rest of you, we still have work to do here, this base is old, but it's also small, any more than a hundred people and we'll need to dig further into the rock for new facilities to house more people until we have enough to go for gaining new ships."

"How do we intend on getting new ships? The First Order's already taken the main shipyards," Lieutenant Ko-Connix reminded her.

"The Republic Defense Fleet had a contingency plan for insuring the safety of reserve starships," Temmin Wexley responded.

"Snap's right," Poe added, "There were several fleets of retired ships kept in a state of mobile mothball reserve. It was intended to be a way to keep pirates and scrappers from getting their hands on old but still potentially useful Republic ships."

"During the time we spent with the fleet remnants they never found and activated their reserve warships before the First Order found and destroyed the Republic stragglers. The reserve fleets were rigged to a main computer that could only be reached from Hosnian Prime. When it was destroyed the fleets lost their way to communicate," Temmin said again, "By now they're just drifting."

"Which means that the First Order has no way of knowing it exists and therefore where it is. Only Republic senior intelligence officers would know their coordinates cycle," Poe said with a smile, "There's a fleet out there, just waiting for us to find it."

"That's a good start, my old government contacts on Chandrila may know where we can begin looking for someone from Republic Intelligence who would know that," Leia said calmly, agreeing with that idea.

"Trouble with spymasters is that they tend to be hard to find," Shriv reminded Leia.

"Indeed, I'll send word to whatever agents of ours that are left to put out feelers to let Republic Intelligence remnants know we're still fighting," Leia nodded thoughtfully.

"If we're going to prove we're still fighting don't you think we need to do something to prove that we're still fighting?"

"Commander the time will come, but we can't rush half-cocked into a fight we're obviously not ready for," Leia said quickly and firmly, "And we have an immediate mission, everyone get some rest. Those of you going will leave at daybreak."

 **That'll due, another chapter done, and some character development done. I think Rey and Zay, in the context of this story, have the ability to become pretty close friends. This'll kinda be a series of arks, realistic ones. In the case of this one the Resistance knows that the First Order is still in the process of solidifying control over planet after planet, and that it is still possible to find allies during these fragile and uncertain early days. Gotta strike the iron while it's still hot. The ships in mobile reserve will be a long-running effort, because a fleet is the key to a long-term war. Without it there's no fight against the First Order.**

 **As for the next chapter it'll be a nice change of pace, in Leia's words subterfuge and cunning. And perhaps we can have some hints at some ships, personally I think Poe ships Poe/Rey, I mean did you see that look on his face when he first met her? But I can see Poe/Zay forming as well, with Shriv acting as his usual smartass observer (Love his character, lots of potential).**

 **Next Chapter Preview: Two separate missions, two new challenges to our heroes.**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Location: Outside Hanna City, Planet Chandrila

Chandrila was not yet firmly under the yoke of the First Order, but it wasn't exactly resisting. Panic and fear spread faster than the First Order could establish their rule. Zay and Poe had gone to find an old friend of Leia's Kya Mothma, the nephew of the first Chancellor of the New Republic. He'd been a member of her administration as an economic advisor, but hadn't continued in politics after her term was up. There was simply better money in the private sector for less hassle. The two were in a hijacked landspeeder zipping through the woods on their way to his estate, where they knew that he would be found.

Chandrila was full of estates, many of them empty and looted of valuables. Their owners had decided to make a break for more remote space along with their precious possessions rather than face the wrath of a vengeful First Order. But from the hearsay in the city the word was that Ky Mothma had not yet left. So the two were moving out at a quick clip. Poe was at the wheel, zipping down the paved road, ignoring all road signs and speed limits.

"Could you possible break any more road rules and get the attention of any cop left?" Zay groaned as they zipped along.

"And miss giving this badboy the drive it deserves?" Poe laughed, patting the wheel happily, "This is a Speed Supreme Guyejiera, there's only a thousand of these in existence."

"You think you're gonna take it with you?" Zay smirked but had a major fright and yelp when they passed a speeder truck at over three hundred kilometers per hour, "If we survive!"

"If it'll fit," Poe shrugged, "It might come in handy on Dantooine."

"Oh, a bright red sports superspeeder is going to keep us well below the radar," Zay rolled her eyes sarcastically.

"Then we'll put some camouflage on," Poe shrugged, "If anything this thing's worth two hundred and fifty thousand credits and would be a quick sell. Or…we use it as part of cover when we go to Canto Bight."

That got Zay's full attention, a speeder like this would give them the kind of edge into a successful cover that would be needed. This occurred to her as they got to their destination, a gated entrance opened for them and a pair of guards was waiting there wearing white and gray uniforms and gray caps. They each had blaster pistols in holsters, and were quite alert.

"Halt," Poe and Zay heard one say to them through the window and hard cover of the convertible speeder, "Please identify yourselves."

"We're friends of General Organa, here to see Mr. Mothma," Poe replied after the window went down.

The guard narrowed his eyes, and repeated the information into a comm on his wrist. In his ear he was told to allow them in, and waved them into the compound of white short rounded buildings surrounded by gardens. It was a hive of activity, hovering pallets of precious furniture was being stowed away into a pair of ships. Supervising it all was a forty-year old man dressed in fine clothes.

"Mr. Mothma?" Poe asked as he pulled up and got out.

"You must be from the Resistance," Ky Mothma greeted Poe.

"Commander Poe Dameron, this is Captain Zay Versio," Poe said in reply.

"That's right, General Organa sent us. We uh…we need your help," Zay added.

"Let me guess you need money, resources?" the man replied as he watched some crates get loaded up.

"If you're able to, we need all we can get right now," Poe told him point blank.

Ky Mothma sighed, "Money is something I have plenty of thankfully. I'll have one of my people get some boxes of hard credits."

"The General said we needed something else, we need clothes, fine clothes, and any jewelry you can spare, the kind that would help us blend in on say…Canto Bight," Zay asked.

"Well, my wife and I had to downsize before I sent her to Zeltros, help yourself to what you can carry."

"Thank you, we really do appreciate it," Zay sighed, glad that part of their mission was accomplished.

"And uh…would you mind us asking for volunteers?" Poe asked, "We need everyone we can get."

"You can try, but I don't think many of them are going to be staying," Ky replied, once more, Poe and Zay noted that he was uninterested and rather dejected. He didn't ring of the decisively rebellious blood of his aunt, the great Mon Mothma. To be honest, Zay and Poe thought he looked defeated.

"Sir, I don't know if I'm overstepping here, but there's a fight to be had against the First Order, and that fight's only just begun. There are soldiers, pilots, and crewmen and women who believe in the Republic. It may not look like it, but the Republic's not dead," Poe said loudly so that Ky's staff could hear him, and they stopped to listen.

"The Republic died when the Hosnian System was destroyed, the government, the Admiralty, the judicial system, most of the fleet, most of the banking apparatus…Commander, the Republic as a system was physically obliterated, what's left has folded, including Chandrila," he then shook his head, "I warned my aunt, the Senate, everyone, only General Organa and listened. Now, she and her Resistance are all that remains. I'm not about to risk my family's lives."

"We may be all that remains. But we're a spark, the First Order is wood, we will burn them to the ground, will you stand with us?!" Poe called out.

Of the thirty plus staff and dozen guards around the area only eight didn't return to their work. Three guards stayed, along with a pair of groundskeepers, a chef, a janitor, and a butler. Among them two were Twi'leks, one male one female, the chef was a pink-skinned male Zeltron, and among the humans two were women.

"Thank you all, for everything, good luck," Ky said quietly in goodbye to his staff who had volunteered, "Well Commander, Captain, I think it's best we go our separate ways now."

"Good luck Mr. Mothma, and don't worry, we'll make sure that your warnings won't go unheeded," Zay assured him.

With that Ky Mothma shook their hands and returned to the task at hand. But Poe was just happy he had some recruits and some cash and clothes for their coming mission at Canto Bight.

Location: Hanna City, Planet Chandrila

They were recruiting as best they could and Rey's disguise was holding up just fine. Pilots, soldiers, and crew along with officers were crawling all over Chandrila. The local garrison had been ordered to disband and the First Order had taken over rapidly. But resistance had apparently been rampant amongst the troops. All of the local security measures, Republic-built, had been torn apart. All of the Republic vehicles and weapons had been destroyed, and every single building in the garrison's base had been burnt to the ground. This left over five hundred pilots, soldiers, and officers from the Chandrila garrison of the Republic Starfighter Corps and Republic Army left with nothing to do.

Fortunately they were easy to find, hanging out at the local bars en masse. Each kind of serviceman had a certain hang-out that they favored. The pilots had been gone to by Temmin and Jessika, while Finn and Rey were tagging along with Shriv going from soldier bar to soldier bar. They walked into their third bar, and Finn saw numerous eyes land on them, word was apparently spreading. In this darkened bar, named "The Liquid Laser" were at least twenty obviously former troops and other rougher and more ready individuals than the average citizen on Chandrila.

"Think we'll get any more?" Rey asked.

"Well we've gotten thirty…seven so far? I think I can land another five or so," Shriv shrugged.

"Mind if I take a crack at them?" Finn asked.

"You have first shot," Shriv crossed his arms and offered him a way in, "Rey, mind taking watch?"

"Sure," the young girl nodded, this was about all she'd done thus far, her disguise of shortened blonde hair, a spacer's leather jacket and utility pants and boots had certainly changed her appearance, but she did have to ward off some less than subtle advances by a handful of ambitious men, and one woman.

"I still think that redhead was your type," Shriv teased her about the woman pilot that had tried winning over Rey.

"You're all perverts," Rey just rolled her eyes, and walked to the entrance to keep a good lookout.

"Well, your audience awaits," Shriv waved Finn forward.

"Ahem, can I have everyone's attention?!" Finn tried calling out. Most of the patrons looked up at him, a couple were seriously paying attention, most weren't, "My name is Finn, I'm here to say that the war against the First Order is only beginning. This fight is one for the galaxy, for the freedom of everyone we care for and love."

"Hold on, let me take this one," Shriv whispered, "All of you hate the First Order right?"

All of them grumbled and nodded.

"You want to fight? Prove that you can fight?" he added and got some vocalized 'yes's' in response, "we're here to offer a chance to fight them, those who want to fight sign up here," Shriv slapped a datapad on the table in front of him, "We're leaving the planet shortly, you may not get another chance to join the Resistance and make a difference."

Almost instantly a dozen of the patrons stood up and started to form a rough line.

"Landing bay six," Shriv told them, "Say that 'Shriv sent me' and they'll let you on board."

"Okay, so none of the big speeches huh?" Finn asked.

"Nah, not to former soldiers. Give them a chance to fight they'll fight," Shriv chuckled as they all signed their names.

"Civilians will though right?"

"Oh yeah," Shriv nodded, "They eat that crap up."

"Crap? Isn't it true though?" Finn scoffed.

"Well I'm not exactly big on the emotional side of the propaganda," Shriv replied.

Then Rey ran inside, her eyes wide.

"Stormtroopers!" she said, and Shriv snatched up his list, which had the names of thirty-nine fresh recruits, men and women who would doubtlessly get executed if their names were found.

"Quick, down here," the bartender called out, offering them a way behind the bar.

Finn and Rey went first, and Shriv went last, pistol drawn. The other patrons resumed their drinking, and acted as if nothing had been going on. The bartender lifted a hatch, and down a flight of steep stairs was a booze cellar, filled with tightly spaced racks of bottles of alcohol from across the galaxy. It was pitch black, and the three had ample room.

"There's a tunnel in the back behind that shelf, I used it to smuggle out volunteers for the old Rebellion," the old Rodian told them.

"Thank you," Finn said, being the last one down.

"Good luck, I'll see to it they leave for the docks," he said in reply and then closed the hatch and they heard him stand on it.

Rey went to the back first, and feeling around in the back she found the shelf and pushed it aside, and there was a small door behind it with the Rebel phoenix painted onto it in faded luminescent paint. Shriv hit a single button next to him, and the door opened.

"Quick," Shriv pushed them through, but they were hit with the stink of an old sewer.

"Oh man!" Finn gagged.

"What wonderful smell you've discovered," Rey coughed.

"It's better than an Imperial cell," Shriv told them, pulling the shelf back into place and then closed the door and shined a flashlight ahead of them and led the way, "There's usually Rebel symbols on the walls that'll lead us to another entrance," he said and pointed to a Rebel symbol far off down the dried up sewer.

"Like that one?" Finn said.

"You think it just happened to be there?"

"Let's go, before I get used to this place's smell," Rey growled, hand held over her nose pinched tightly.

The three of them moved quickly, their noses burning from the horrific stench. They all avoided the low point in the twelve-foot tall semi-circular pipe, some stagnant rainwater sat there, but here that stuff was no longer just rainwater. But they weren't alone down here at the moment, all three went quiet after they heard a bootsteps, and they knew that there was someone else down here. Finn decided to be the first to check it, and shut off his flashlight and drew his GLIE-44 Blaster Pistol and moved forward to the corner, careful to be sure he wasn't making any noise.

He now started hearing some talking, static-like, as if it were coming through a radio or a helmet. This meant only one thing, Stormtroopers. Finn peered around the corner and saw a four-man team of troopers standing idly as they watched a pair of black-uniformed technicians with large suits for hazardous work setting up a power washer next to their next Rebel Phoenix, the next marker.

"The First Order, they're erasing the marks," Finn told them.

"That's not good," Shriv grumbled.

"C'mon, let's take them out," Rey insisted.

"We'll need to do it quick and quiet," Finn replied, thinking on what they needed to do, "Wait until that pressure washer starts up, that'll mask our fire from anyone who might be able to hear it from above."

The group of three started to shift around, there were six targets, and all were paying attention to their own task, not keeping a firm security. Finn stopped and aimed, then so did Rey and Shri aimed from behind them. The troopers and their guards were perfect targets, and by the time one of them turned around they were ready. Without much in the way of warning Finn fired, blasting one of the troopers into the wall with a direct killshot into the chest. Shriv fired into the Stormtrooper holding the heavy blaster and that man went down into the puddle without a noise. The third was Rey's shot, and that trooper was the team leader who went down onto their side as they raised their blaster in vain. The last trooper got hit rapidly and the other men went down before they could pull their pistols.

"Clear," Finn called out, grabbing one of the F-11's and holding it at the ready.

"Grab their guns, quick," Shriv ordered Rey, snatching up the FWMB-10 repeating blaster and throwing it over his shoulder and grabbed an F-11 and each of them snatched a pistol and tucked it into their belts.

"Quick, we need to dump them," Finn told them.

"There's a dropoff, they won't find them down there in that current," Shriv said as he grabbed a stormtrooper and began dragging the body towards a cliff where they could hear moving water.

It didn't take more than a few minutes for each of them to drag two bodies and drop it into the rough current. The power washer they also dumped, leaving no visible traces.

"Now let's go, they may have gotten rid of the symbols but they still made them visible enough to follow just by cleaning them," Finn suggested, and saw a crisp section of concrete down the sewer.

"Let's move."

It didn't take much longer for them to make to a ladder at the end of the sewer line. It was very obvious that it was where they wanted to be, judging by the noises of ships and moving crates near the exit.

"You sure we won't be walking into a trap?" Shriv asked.

"Yeah, it's clear, I can feel it," Rey said, closing her eyes gently, and put her hands on the ladder after slinging her newly acquired blaster rifle over her shoulder and began climbing.

She reached the top and then pushed with her left hand and had her pistol ready. They were in an alley next to the spaceport, and she knew it was perfect for getting their new recruits later on. She quickly waved Finn and Shriv to join them and they climbed out, hiding the blaster rifles in their coats. A pair of Stormtroopers was standing at the street corner as another pair was setting up a hover tower for sentry purposes a ways down.

"Quick," a familiar voice said, it was Poe inside the side door that they had left out of when they came to the planet and left the port, "I see you guys had some fun."

"Yeah, lots," Finn said in reply, getting up, and then bent down to take the FWMB-10 from Shriv who came up right behind him.

"Walker coming get in," Shriv ordered them.

The group scrambled inside, seeing Zay waiting on them. They had eight people behind them, by the Millennium Falcon, helping to load up some crates, and Shriv saw a bright red speeder next to the Falcon. They shut the door before relaxing their guard.

"Is that…"

"Yeah, pretty sweet huh?" Poe smirked proudly, "We even got booze," he then pulled up a crate full of local craft beer bottles and a couple kegs of another kind of beer, "They weren't taking these with them, so we helped ourselves to them and a few more crates like them along with some food, good food."

"Commander, you have just won the MVP award for this mission," Shriv nodded appreciatively, "New recruits?" he then pointed to the eight people.

"Yeah, employees of Ky Mothma, he gave us what was left of his and his wife's wardrobe and twenty-five thousand credits, enough for us to get going on our Canto Bight op."

"How'd you guys do with recruitment?" Zay asked.

"Fifty-one troops signed on, fifty-nine including them," Shriv informed them, pretty proud of their work.

"They're already there," Poe said, "Good job, the General'll be pretty pleased. We're now able to fight."

"Commander!" Jessika called out, and Temmin came in with her with a datapad with something interesting on it.

"Yeah," Poe replied.

"Two full squadrons from the local garrison, they volunteered," Temmin said, handing him the list.

"Awesome, we can start fighting back with close to three squadrons," Poe grinned confidently, hyped at the knowledge that they had some mass to their forces now.

"We've got enough to deal with Canto Bight, that's for sure," Jessika agreed.

"Well, we'll at least be able to make a nuisance of ourselves," Finn replied.

Location: Resistance Headquarters, Planet Dantooine

"General, we've got incoming ships, identifying…friendlies. Commander Dameron's signaling success," Lieutenant Connix said, a smile brightening her face.

"Open the doors," Leia ordered the sergeant on the door and crane controls.

"Yes ma'am," the man replied hitting his controls after examining them to be sure he was doing it right.

The metal doors opened with a grinding noise that Leia winced at. They still hadn't gotten everything fully working on its assorted mechanisms. But that thought left her mind when she saw the two Montura-class shuttles enter the hangar followed by the Falcon. The shuttles were guided to their new parking spaces, outlined in white on the stone floor and the Falcon parked in the rear out of the way of the X-Wings should they have to scramble. Leia grabbed her cane and started to move forward to greet the new arrivals, however many that they be.

When she got out into the hangar she saw that the extent of their success was impressive. The men and women in the shuttles were out, and formed into squares, each had the look of a soldier or a pilot. These weren't the patriots that she had commanded in the past, these were soldiers, more like her old comrades of the old Rebellion. Despite the fact that many wore civilian clothes and had backpacks, sacks, and other stuff holding their gear and weren't in any sort of military grooming standard. But they were ready to fight.

"General on deck!" Poe called out and a singular clack of heels sounded out.

"Thank you, Commander, thank you everyone for stepping forward to take this fight onto your shoulders. The galaxy thanks you, the Republic thanks you, we all thank you," Leia told them, "Now let's get to work."

"You heard her!" Poe yelled, draw weapons and uniforms, "All pilots report back here for squadron assignments once your gear is dolled out. Troops report to Lieutenant Connix for platoon assignment."

As one the groups started to get ushered out to the storage bays where their weapons, uniforms, and equipment were stored. Organized lines were formed as Lieutenant Connix sorted out the officers amongst them and got two whole platoons organized into two separate watches, twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Amongst them were a handful of experienced command and control and logistics officers that Leia was relieved to see take over some of the command staff duties in the command center. This freed her to start organizing things in the base's old and very dusty laundry room where she'd had Poe and Zay come up to start working on their disguises.

"Jeez," Zay said as she held up a dress, stunned by the incredibly deep neckline, and heavily bejeweled material.

"Oh, Ghuviera Collection, very nice," Leia said as she held the dress up to Zay, "Maybe take it in a bit at the waist…a little around here…" she mumbled, just pleased as could be at such a simple yet relaxing task as tailoring.

"Learned a few things about tailoring General?" Poe asked as he was trying on different fine shoes as per Leia's instructions.

"Had to, my…father, Senator Organa, wasn't much for having a girl who couldn't do things for herself. Plus I found it relaxing and necessary as a Senator to be able to figure out my own wardrobe from a technical point of view," Leia said in response, "And the years with the Rebellion helped me in that regard, I couldn't be pampered as much when I only had Threepio and Artoo so I had to do things for myself."

"Wise policy," Poe nodded in affirmation.

"Oh I'm so glad I have your approval Commander Dameron," Leia said as she handed the dress to Zay, "We'll start with this one, go ahead and change and we'll make some marks. If you need help I'll call in Rey to give us a hand."

"Don't want me to give you a hand?" Poe offered, pulling on a suit jacket with a diagonal black stripe going from the bottom of the lapels to the collar and then struck a pose, "Your dashing husband?"

"When there's a ring on this hand then you can pretend," Zay held her hand up and pointed to it as she told him off snarkily.

"Go on Commander, you're next, get our pilots organized. I'll send word when it's your turn," Leia shooed him away.

Poe sighed in relief as he hung the coat back up and boot his boots on. He was more than happy to be done with that for now. He'd always hated clothes shopping and fitting and everything else that came with it. Being the son of pilots made him eager for movement, for doing something, and sitting in place trying on clothes and getting fitted for said clothes was completely foreign to him and deeply uncomfortable, especially when it Princess/General Leia Organa Solo who was doing it here and now. But such was the current mission and when his time came to do it he'd just have to suck it up.

"Hey, Poe," Finn called out, running up to him from behind as the door shut behind him, "You done already?" the former Stormtrooper noted curiously.

"No, no it's just Zay's got first turn for her clothes to get fitted. Finn ole buddy, I tell ya there might just be something there," Poe informed his friend confidently.

"What? You and Zay?" Finn asked as they walked into the rec room where they saw Rey sitting at a table, a few cans of paint next to her as she was busy cutting out patterns for the flight helmet on the table before her, "I thought that you and Rey had some chemistry?"

"No, or-well, maybe. I didn't think it was right, I thought you were sorta working that angle," Poe whispered.

"I thought I was…then I met Rose," Finn shrugged as they sat down.

"So you and Rey were never…"

"Me and Rey? No, we only knew each other for a day or two."

Rey put down her knife and sighed in annoyance at the two, "Rey can hear you y'know, and no one's working any angle. Not with me anyway," she called out to them, causing them to look at one another then back at her.

"The Force helped you hear us?" Poe asked.

"No, you two are just not that stealthy," Rey playfully pointed the knife at them.

"Might need to work on that before your mission pal," Finn chuckled.

"Yeah, so anyway…how's the helmet coming along?" Poe asked as he walked over, looking over Rey's shoulder at the templates, a few had already been discarded due to mistakes with the knife she had in her hand.

"Almost there, just gotta get this Jedi symbol done, but it's bloody difficult."

"You could just have your droid cut it out with his laser cutter, it's how I did mine, I traced and BB-8 cut," Poe suggested.

"Forgot about that…" Rey growled, grunting in annoyance, "I'm just…used to doing things myself, never had a droid to help me with this kind of stuff."

"Yeah, use 'em, he's a BB unit, he's about as good as a work and field partner as you can get. I mean look how many times my little buddy saved all of our lives," Poe reminded her.

"True," Rey nodded in agreement, and pulled up her standard commlink for communication with her droid, "Three-C, you busy?" a single chirp from her droid rang out in reply, "Right, could you come help me out with some precision cutting? Then maybe I can give you a paintjob," her offer was seemingly met with a yes because Rey smirked as the droid replied, "Like my helmet it is then."

"Your droid wants a paintjob like your helmet?" Poe asked.

"Yeah, blue and white, I've got a handprint here I'll have the Resistance symbol inside of, and the Jedi symbol here on the right, my right," Rey pointed out, "Plus a blue stripe down the middle and over the ears. Blue like my lightsaber."

"Which is broken," Finn reminded her.

"Yes I know, you don't have to keep reminding me," Rey growled as she pulled her helmet off the table and into her lap and placed the sticky template on the front visor cover of her helmet with a left hand shape cut out with the seal of the Alliance Starbird cut out to remain the stark white of the helmet's base coat when paint was applied, she reached out and the blue spray paint can slowly got pulled into her hand.

"That is very cool," Poe pointed down at the paint can in her hand.

"Useful too," Rey agreed as she gave a single thick coat that dried upon application. She let it set for a moment then gave it another to deepen the blue color then peeled it off, and it turned out pretty well.

"Nice," Finn said in admiration.

"You might need it done quick," Poe said, "We're gonna be heading out on our mission soon."

"Canto Bight?" Rey asked as her droid rolled on in, beeping at her, "Here, can you cut this template out?"

She handed it down to the droid and it began working diligently as Poe pulled out a datapad and put it on the table.

"Looks like there's a big city-wide party, the rich and the famous and bad and the ugly are being invited for the city's fiftieth establishment anniversary. This means that we'll have ourselves a fattier and more deserving target, and it'll be quite the crowd to blend in with. The parties will begin in about five days, so that's how long we have," Poe explained, pointing at the flyer he'd taken a picture of.

"Think that we'll be ready?" Finn asked.

"The General says she'll have us ready to go in a day, and it'll take another day to get there and so we'll have a day and night to recon before things really get going," Poe outlined, painting a clear time table, "Although we still need to find ourselves a yacht to use for part of our cover."

"Well you and BB-8 are pretty good at stealing ships, that shouldn't be any issue," Finn recommended, getting a chuckle from Poe who half-heartedly shrugged in agreement.

"And what about us?" Rey asked, knowing that she had a task to perform now that she was disguised with her blonde hair.

"Hypothetically we could get you sent out now," Poe shrugged, "Problem is we're still organizing, I've got three squadrons now, Red, Blue, and Black, but we've also got enough fighters for another one."

"It wouldn't hurt I guess to get eyes in town and start recruiting and forging a safehouse for ourselves," Finn noted.

"The General's got someone working on that. Rey, the team we're sending will be you, Shriv, Finn, and Rose. You'll be our backup in case something goes wrong for Zay and me. Threepio says we've got a contact on the planet, someone who works in the stables and has a way to get in and out of the casino and the drainage system," Poe told the two, "That'll be our safehouse contact."

"Won't we risk the police recognizing us?" Finn asked in concern.

"Well, if the General goes for my secondary mission you can get some payback," Poe winked, "I'm pitching the idea to loot their armory and steal whatever else we can."

"That's a little ambitious isn't it?" Rey asked, "We've only got a hundred people now."

"That might be helped soon, the new recruits said there's more Republic remnants out there. Niv and C'ai are on their way to a training base on Serenno where they said the Republic had a supply base and a technical school for something or other."

"Technical school?" Finn asked.

"Yeah sensor operations or something else really specialized. The lieutenant who told us said there were three hundred plus people on base when he was there, plus a pair of X-Wing squadrons and the usual shuttles for basic transport," Poe shook his head, knowing how desperate they sounded, "We need everyone and everything, so let's hope we can scrounge some of those people before it's too late."

"Snap's on his way to contact a Republic garrison that's on Rhen Var, one of the officers we recruited said a whole company is stranded there at a comms relay outpost along with an A-Wing Squadron."

"Let's hope they're still there," Finn nodded.

"Yeah, a whole company, plus base personnel, roughly two hundred and thirty people, boy I'd like to get them on our side," Poe replied, sitting back into his chair, "Snap said he'll contact us when he gets an answer, which should be tomorrow."

"It'll be nice to add some numbers," Rey nodded, but then realized something, "Wait, isn't this place a little small for six hundred people?"

"Been looking into that," Finn replied, and pulled out a map, "Dantooine's only going to serve as a base for us for so long before the First Order moves in and finds us. We need somewhere far out of the way so we can get our feet under us again. But we still need to stay in range of planets for our shuttles and fighters to reach. So, I'm thinking of putting this to the general."

He pulled out of Poe's screen and pulled up a galaxy map as Rey started painting on her next template, the Jedi symbol. Finn scrolled down to the southern Outer Rim, and zoomed in a single planet that had a tertiary shipping lane near it. He then clicked on it and its planetary information came up.

"Rugosa, it's an uninhabited world with nothing valuable about it except for one thing, seclusion. It's a perfect place to hide. We can burrow in amongst the caves in its deep gorges and hide ourselves there until we're able to make our move against the First Order."

"Rugosa, I've heard of that place, the Old Republic had a big outpost out there, abandoned after the Clone War, I remember my mom and dad told me that they were on their way to salvage from it but got rerouted by command when something more important came up. They never made it there to investigate, so there still might be an outpost there to find and maybe use," Poe said excitedly, "Plus the First Order may not arrive in the area for a while with their attention focused closer to the Core."

"Agreed, but will the General agree to it?" Finn asked.

"Well, when it's my turn to get my suit tailored I'll ask."

 **Finished, and it has been a while, but I should be able to get more now that I've graduated college and am getting into my new job. The parts that I'm really enjoying are the dialogue portions of this, Finn and Poe as friends have the best dynamic and Rey added to that (Whenever she's not being Mary-Sue'd) adds to that. But also, you may have noted that I've been hinting at some shipping going on here, and yes I'd love to see how the story pans out to see if we can get a little bit of a relationship or two going on.**

 **But yeah, the story's coming along fine and most important I'm really enjoying writing this. See you guys until next time, hopefully that'll be soon.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: On to Canto Bight, undercover and on mission, let's do it.**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Location: Nubian Star Drives Dealership, Planet Nubia

"Thanks for the help," Poe said to the man allowing them into the dealership operated by Nubian Star Drives for their not-yet-sold yachts.

"Anything for the Resistance Commander," the young security guard nodded with a bright smile, "Go for the T-Type 484, it's got enough space for a speeder and she is fast."

"Thanks for the tip," Poe said back, "Know where the anti-theft beacon on it would be?"

"Usually they're attached under the control panel, tied in with the comms system. You don't take it off right it fries the whole board," the guard replied in a whisper.

"We've got a BB unit hiding back there in the bushes, he can take care of it," Poe replied.

"Good call sir," the young man nodded, "I'll let him in."

"Thanks," Poe said in thanks, "You might be lose your job for this."

"Gonna lose it anyway when the First Order takes over the company, might as well go out swinging and help the good guys."

The security guard had apparently been a fervent follower of the Resistance and their fight against the First Order. He'd recognized Poe when he'd come in, trying to pass himself and Zay off as clients for a new yacht. So despite the fact the place was closed to your average individual he let them in, turning a blind eye to their lack of legitimate social and economic status. And just like that Poe and Zay were walking into the finely decorated and large building filled with some of the most expensive and beautiful ships in the galaxy.

"Can't believe we're reduced to stealing a space yacht," Zay growled indignantly.

She'd been shifting uncomfortably in her new outfit, a dark blue and white loose-fitting one-shoulder dress tied with a black sash around her waist and midriff and flapped lightly around her legs, disguising the hold-out blaster she had strapped to her thigh. She'd even had to put on heels, stockings, and makeup on top of the black feathers stuck in her hair which was the worst part of all of this. Zay and her mother had never been much for doing her hair up pretty save for one or two dates when she thirteen or fourteen. That was at least her mother, having General Organa do her hair while teaching Poe how to do it himself made it the most awkward experience of her life. They'd had to do it three times before Poe and her could get the loose bun and bouncy curled strands of hair just right. However Leia had explicitly told them that it was part of their cover and that they'd have to learn how to be self-sufficient in all regards as a well-to-do couple, that included the finer points of fashion.

Seeing as Zay was only twenty-three, this wasn't as bad as she made it out to be. Fashion and pretty things had some limited appeal, but in a group like the Resistance affinity for those things could be considered soft, so some of the discomfort with the frilly and kind of revealing dress and fine heels made for an awkward time especially when she'd never had such things growing up. Not only that the knowledge they were here to do something that could end up going very badly made the clicking sounds of her heels and Poe's shoes that much louder in her own ears, which were also pierced for some diamond earrings.

"Wow, now this is what I'm talking about," Poe smiled brightly, holding his arms out as if basking in the glory of engineering perfection in front of him.

A protocol droid came up to them, holding a tray of champagne glasses with freshly bubbling liquid inside. Poe took one with a 'thank you' and Zay did likewise.

"A sales representative will be with you shortly," the silver and shiny blue droid informed them in a proper female accent, "Please enjoy yourselves."

"Oh I shall…" Poe smirked, winking to Zay who rolled her eyes.

"Let's just find the T-Type and get BB-8 working so we can go," Zay whispered to him.

"We will, but we've gotta look at some of these others first," Poe said as he went over to the first and largest one in what was essentially a plushed-up hangar.

"Ah, our flagship line," a prim and proper Bith man said, walking over to him and straightening his tuxedo with the NSD pin on the lapels, "Welcome to Nubian Stardrives, I am Ar'k Cheef, our leading sales representative here."

"Luuk, Luuk Lecane," Poe responded, making sure his own bright blue jacket was tight before shaking the Bith sales rep's hand, "This is my fiancé Frianne."

"A pleasure," the Bith said with a polite bow, "Do you have a specific model you are looking for or are we simply browsing at the moment?"

"We've got an idea what we're looking for. But…" Poe sighed appreciatively, motioning with a hand to the eighty-meter-long and forty-meter-wide X-Type 500 before them, "Why not enjoy some quality ships before that right?"

"And what quality is the X-Type, all the usual refinements of course, a Class-1 Hyperdrive, our own copyrighted hyperdrive and navicomputer that is exclusive to the X-Type, a spa for six, a steambath for a dozen, fully equipped gym, office, and comfortable quarters for owners and a dozen guests and crew bedding for eight and separate facilities for crew and guests."

"Very nice," Poe responded, "It doesn't…appear to be a pilot's ship though is it?"

"Ah…you're one of those customers, a pilot-my-own-yacht type of man. Well I have just the ship for you then," Cheef noted, and walked them past the large yacht to one that was much slimmer and much more fighter-like.

"The T-Type," Poe grinned.

"Built for the experience of piloting, we tend to sell these ships to our thrill junky customers. I've seen ships of this type outpace blockade runners and even Incom T-70 X-Wings," the sales rep proudly declared.

"Well, she certainly looks capable enough," Poe admired it, stepping closer for a full inspection.

The ship they were looking at was black, polished heavily to a mirror finish. It had two wings that aggressively angled back halfway down the length that went down the bent back up to finish and turn inwards at rounded edges. This gave its main hull a rounded arrowhead shape with a pointed rear section that was a viewscreen for the semi-spacious main cabin. It had two rather massive pointed engine pods on both sides that were coned up front and ended in long points aft of a low tailfin that bisected cleanly the back half of the ship and ended over the bridge's tinted windows, giving the ship an aggressive and fast look. It was classically Nubian with rounded edges and a squashed profile with a deployed storage lift big enough to fit a speeder within the nose and a ramp that led into the forty-meter-long ship. It had only one deck, but this was fine for Poe.

"She's the latest of your 'Night' Edition I see," Zay pointed out, seeing the holographic ship ID card and price tag, "Two hundred grand?"

"Yes madam, a fair bargain for true piloting pleasure and thrill."

"Well," Zay said as he saw BB-8 quietly rolling through, underneath tablecloths stealthily towards them, "If we're going to even consider spending that kind of money I'll need more than a visual inspection."

"A test flight perhaps?" the Bith responded, "You are…capable of handling this ship?"

"I fly fast for a living," Poe said without thought or hesitation.

"Is that so? Might I ask what it is you do for a living Mr. Lecane?"

"You might say I've made a living being able to fly faster and turn better than my opponents," Poe honestly said, flashing a smile to both the sales rep and his 'fiance'.

"I see, well, due to obvious risks we shall require some paperwork and a safety deposit of thirty thousand credits," the man said in reply as Poe got off the display platform and stood in front of him.

"How about…" Poe sighed, not necessarily wanting to do this, but he had little choice in the matter, orders were orders, he drew his hidden Glie-44 and held it stealthily to the surprised Bith's chest, "No…"

"H-how?" the Bith sputtered helplessly as Zay held a hand forcefully to his back to keep them close as he attempted to back away.

"I'm sorry. If we could purchase this legally we would, in a heartbeat," Poe whispered.

"How dare you!"

"Keep your voice down," Poe snapped quietly, jabbing his blaster up into the fleshy chin of the individual.

BB-8 rolled right on through and up the open ramp of the ship, the sales rep had an idea then what was going on. They pushed him towards the ship and they all got up into the fine living room of the ship which had a side-room for a kitchen and another one for a dining room and a guest cabin to the front and engine rooms on both sides between them. BB-8 started to use his upgraded hardware to hack into the thin security of the NDS link to the ship in its fine control surfaces and started fueling it.

"Get the beacon out first buddy," Poe ordered.

"That's impossible, only-," the Bith started but a click and a chip ejecting from the data drive slot answered that.

"Upgrades," Zay said, waving the chip to him and the Bith gently took it in shock.

"You're not going to kill me are you?"

"Tell you the truth," Poe smirked as the ship's engines started to glow blue as BB-8 started it up, "This thing's set to stun."

"And we're also sorry about what we're about to do," Zay said as she sat down in the co-pilot's chair and flipped the speeder bay to shut and then ejected the thin attached hoses with an emergency release.

"What?! Security!" the sales rep called out, and Poe just shrugged as he sprinted out of the ship down its ramp and he just downed his glass of champagne and tossed it out and then shut the carpeted ramp which became a seamless part of the rug in the center of the room behind the door to the cockpit.

"Let's go," Poe smirked and sat down into the pilot's seat and took the chrome and black metal controls and the nimble ship lifted off.

The room was filled with the powerful gusts caused by the ship's immensely powerful engines and Poe rotated them around and faced the glass face of the hangar/dealership and waited for the ship's three landing struts were brought back into their craft and the streamlined vessel was fully prepared.

"This is going to be so much fun…" Poe grinned broadly and hit the throttle.

The T-Type 484 shot out the hangar glass like it was fired from a blaster. It broke the sound barrier within a few miles of its starting point with a sharp crack as Poe started pulling up on the craft and aiming spaceward, whooping all the way in sheer joy. The inertial dampeners completely took the shock of acceleration so that all they felt was a light push back into their soft but encompassing seats. The surface of the green world dropped away as Poe pushed them through the clouds, and the blue of sky faded and replaced by the black of space and the twinkling of stars.

"That guard has a great taste for ships!" Poe said proudly as he laughed at their new prize.

"Seemed like it was too easy doesn't it?" Zay asked curiously.

"Yeah, yeah maybe," Poe shrugged indifferently, "But NDS has one of the lowest crime rates in the galaxy, no one thinks that anyone is crazy enough to walk into a luxury dealership and pull a blaster on you."

"And the guard being sympathetic helps our cause?"

"Oh yeah," Poe grumbled, "I guess we can't really take all the credit," but had to scoff at BB-8 chirping at him angrily, "And you get a lot of it as well pal. Nice job on that chip."

"Still, those ships were going to be taken over by the First Order's bureaucrats," Zay sighed, "I guess we can also be sure to pay them back later on."

"We'll try, in the meantime, let's check this ship out," Poe said as he stood up.

"And I can take these stupid heels off," Zay remembered, reaching down and started undoing her heels and took them off, getting a sigh of relief.

"We've got a full wine cabinet," Poe called out from the back, shifting around.

"No, we're not making it that kind of mission Commander," Zay said as she walked in, undoing her hair.

"Ya sure? This stuff combined is as expensive as a fighter," Poe countered, looking at the labels one by one in the cabinet that encompassed the wall by the main cabin door.

Zay rolled her eyes and walked to the cabin, seeing that it had an office chair and table and a closet with a bathroom. The bed was quite large, and faced the zooming of hyperspace that was the big viewscreen of the rear of the ship. The whole ship was carpeted, with only the bathroom being the exception. The bedroom was white carpet, and the main rec room was red with plush couches and a round table of dark wood from Kashyyyk and a holographic entertainment system.

"No, and good night, Commander. I'm tired."

"Alright, I guess I'll take the couch," Poe shrugged.

Location: Resistance Headquarters, Planet Dantooine

Leia could now walk out of her new office and be greeted by a pair of armed soldiers wearing helmets and dark green uniforms guarding her person. The command center was the same way, the troops preferred to keep watch with their gear on at all times, except for their helmets. They'd recovered a great deal of equipment when they'd about salvaged the equipment from Lah'mu, among it was military tactical vests, real uniforms, and quality backpacks along with full-faced helmets with yellow blast goggles. The real Republic troops wore these well, standing or walking around with their rifles in their hands, and their faces visible thanks to their gas-mask section of their helmets being left in their packs.

Leia had seen many personalizing their gear, and allowed it, as each man and woman was their own person and felt more comfortable doing things just a little differently than regulation. Her officers on the other hand were still rather stuck in their ways, and the command center was awash with the dozen officers that they had now, all in the same uniform as they went about their jobs. Leia too traded her dresses out for something more utilitarian now that she was healing properly, and was currently going over some plans when Finn entered the room.

"General? May I have a word ma'am?" the former Stormtrooper asked, fighting the urge to stand at crisp attention as his training told him to do when in the presence of a commanding officer.

"Relax Finn, you're in the inner circle now. What's on your mind?" Leia responded, waving him down.

"We're starting to grow again, that's great, we need to. But don't you think we'll need to find a new base soon? Dantooine's done its job, it saved us. It's time we moved further towards reestablishing a main base of operations."

"I know, it's something I've been thinking a lot about too," Leia nodded thoughtfully, "With contact potentially being made with the Republic bases at Serenno and Rhen Var we could get more than six or seven hundred people in our ranks within mere days. Plus, we're simply out of room to store ships and equipment," Leia added.

"That's why I've been doing some research, ever heard of Rugosa?"

"Yes I have, and yes, I am considering it given the right circumstances," Leia replied.

"Such as?"

"Well, we need ships and fuel to get us there, it's an awful long way to go for starfighters and shuttles Finn," Leia reminded him, it was directly across the galaxy from them, "And that very much depends on our pilots' missions to Rhen Var and Serenno. There may or there may not be elements of the Republic Fleet still alive out there."

"I thought that the fleet was destroyed at the Hosnian System and in subsequent battles?" Finn asked.

"We thought we'd destroyed the Imperial fleet at Endor and Jakku, but we still kept finding star destroyers," Leia reminded Finn, "The same will hopefully apply to us as it did to the Empire as it scrambled to regroup and reorganize."

"Find the strays and scoop them up," Finn nodded in understanding.

"That's the general idea yes. In relation to that inevitability I have a change of mission for you."

"A change? I thought you were sending Rose and me to Canto Bight?" Finn asked, leaning with both hands on the command table.

"You and Rose will take a shuttle and a fireteam to Rugosa, see what kind of facilities and resources are there and check how much the trip drains your tanks," Leia informed him, "We'll leave a token group here under Lieutenant Connix if can be determined we are able to make things work at Rugosa."

"When do you want us to leave?" Finn asked.

"As soon as a shuttle is prepared. Which should be…" Leia looked around Finn's shoulder and saw a Montura-Class Shuttle already sitting on the ready position in the hangar, "Now."

Finn looked over his shoulder, and saw Rose there, smiling softly with a backpack over her shoulder. Four Resistance troops were also there, helmets on, EL-16HFE's held in their hands and packs over their shoulders. These weren't the Resistance veterans who had survived Crait, these were some of the former Republic troops from Chandrila, trained professionals. It seemed as though there were made of granite, no expressions, no laughter, just business.

"Ready to find a new base?" Rose asked, offering Finn an EL-16.

"Always, you sure you're good to go?"

"Yeah, of course."

Leia watched the group introduce themselves to one another, and then started boarding their shuttle and she watched it take off and accelerate away. The sensors station tracked the shuttle into orbit and past the two X-Wings that were on rotating CAP over the planet, and then jumped into hyperspace. It would take a day and a half to get to Rugosa through the Mid-Rim. Things actually appeared like they were coming together, the Resistance was recovering from the brink of collapse and annihilation. It appeared that way just judging from the fact that everywhere she looked there were people now. The hangar no longer had its devastating quiet, instead it was a cacophony of noise, and the halls were filled with troops, pilots, and technicians going about their business. The intercom system was calling out every so often, filling the base with noise to make certain important matters were attended to.

"General," the comms officer, a new man, called out, "Captain Wexley is making contact from Rhen Var."

"Put him on," Leia ordered, standing up and facing the comms station and the scratchy holographic image of the orange uniformed pilot came across as a light blue, "Captain, tell me you have some good news for me."

"Yes General I do, the Rhen Var garrison is intact and all personnel here are willing to fight. I got a count, three hundred and eleven personnel, including an MP platoon, an infantry company, and a pair of A-Wing squadrons with accompanying support personnel, droids, and assets for them and the relay outpost. They've even got a dozen shuttles. But there's more ma'am."

"Really?" Leia asked, her heart fluttering.

"They've got three derelict ships here, Vakbeor-Class, they're not much for combat and don't have crews, but they're a helluva lot better than nothing."

"Do their ships have any fuel captain?"

"Yes ma'am, but…they have issues. They say that they've been working on repairing them, all three ships haven't flown in years, the Republic had used them to transport the original building materials for the base and hadn't bothered to fix and fly them out when they'd finished," Temmin sighed, rubbing the back of his head.

Leia couldn't help but smirk. Bureaucratic waste at its most ridiculous, but ironically it could be turned to helping them out here.

"What sort of repairs do they require?"

"They need to de-ice their entire hulls and engine bays to know for sure. But they've got several feet of snow and ice on them right now, it'll take some time and we'll need those ships for transporting the equipment and supplies in the base," Temmin informed her.

"Very well, assist them in any way you can."

"Roger that General, any word on Niv and C'ai on Serenno?"

"Nothing yet, we should be hearing from them soon though Captain. Do what you can there. We've got a scouting team going out to find a new base to act as a new headquarters as we speak. The Rhen Var garrison will be sent there to secure it."

"Roger that general, I'll alert you when they've gotten this base fully prepped for movement to wherever we're going."

"Very good captain," Leia nodded to him with a smile, and the call ended and she looked to Lieutenant Connix with a smile.

"Three hundred people, two fighter squadrons, and three cargo frigates," the young officer listed, "And all the equipment, supplies, experience, and leadership that they come with. If Serenno has even half of that we'll be in business."

"We already are Lieutenant," Leia responded.

"Well, we still haven't had a single raid against the First Order. The troops and pilots are itching to fight ma'am," the blonde lieutenant whispered.

"We fought them once, understrength and under-supported. Look what happened then Kaydel, I'm not making that mistake again, not until we've gained enough strength that we won't risk the same kind of annihilation that we just escaped."

"So we don't fight back? We sit here and watch the galaxy get swallowed up by the First Order?"

"Not even the Empire was able to swallow the whole galaxy, the First Order is not the Empire. We'll have enough time to gather strength before the First Order is fully established. I know because the New Republic was in a very similar situation after Endor and Jakku, the Empire was collapsing, we were taking world after world, but we couldn't move fast enough and were having logistical administrative and political nightmares occur one after another as we pushed further and further. No one can be prepared for that. Especially with a new leadership that may be in flux right now."

Lieutenant Connix nodded slightly, understanding, but not exactly pleased with their situation. A hundred troops and pilots and a pair of X-Wing squadrons and half of a third did not make for much of a galaxy-liberation movement. That was the problem with the Resistance before, it was a counter to the First Order, its objective was to get the Republic to see to the danger of the First Order and react to it. And when the might of the First Order was dropped upon their heads they didn't have the ability to withstand it, now they would have to rebirth the Rebellion of old. Leia knew just how to do it.

"General," an engineering warrant officer newly recruited from Chandrila interrupted her thoughts, "We've gotten the driller working ma'am. Permission to begin excavations for new facilities?"

"Oh, yes, it was an emergency escape tunnel you were wanting?" Leia asked, getting an affirmative nod in reply, "Proceed. But, Mr. Taggen we may not be here much longer. Focus your efforts on the escape tunnel for now."

"Yes ma'am, we'll begin immediately."

The man snapped off a crisp salute and Leia simply nodded back at him. This was her way of returning the increasing number of salutes she was getting from her former-military personnel, who now made up the majority of her force. This fact too would change given time. But right now after spending the better part of a day here in the command center organizing her new command stations staff she decided it would be best to get some fresh air.

"Kaydel, I'm going to go get some air," she told her current duty officer.

"Yes ma'am."

She stood up and with her cane started walking to where she knew the surface exit was, tucked into a cave that looked out over the savanna where wild nerf grazed by the thousands as far as the eye could see. Leia reached this cave, and saw that a group of soldiers were there just outside the cave, doing some fairly dirty work mixing water, mud, and dried grass to form a kind of clay that they were stacking into two foot thick walls as others continued to arrive with long lengths of wood. Leia saw Rey out here as well, bare-footed and mixing the building materials in a three foot deep hole alongside two other Resistance soldiers as their comrades were working on forming the stuff into chunks and dropping them along a pair of holes that were being dug down to lessen the workload and provide a lower target to what they were building.

"What's this?" Leia asked, taking them all by surprise.

"General," a sergeant there with them said, and everyone snapped to attention, "Making pillboxes ma'am. This is an excellent field of fire, seemed right to might as well take advantage."

"These won't do much against even a repeating blaster y'know," Leia pointed out.

"It's not done yet," Rey pointed out, getting out of the hole, having completed her batch, "We're going to add more layers, like a slope, and we'll put dirt and plant some grasses, covering it over to keep it hidden."

Leia nodded, liking their work ethic.

"Anything else you're planning on sergeant?" Leia asked.

"Uh…we're thinking of a line of trenches and more pillboxes up there to the left under those trees. Just enough to make this entrance defensible."

"Well, let's not get ambitious, just finish what you have and your commanders will see where you go with that next. And do you mind if I borrow Rey?" Leia asked.

"Yes ma'am she's all yours."

"C'mon, there's something I wanted to talk with you about," Leia said to Rey.

"Sure," Rey responded, and started following her, her feet and calves completely caked with drying mud and bits of dried grass.

Leia and Rey walked up the hill, towards a secluded stand of nutting trees where Leia knew it would be quiet, but at least shaded. She motioned Rey to sit down on a flat stone and she sat across from her on another smaller one. Rey appeared a mess, her face sweaty and coated with dust and her hands and feet were drying in a layer of dark tannish gray from the mud that they had been working with.

"You received a little bit of training from Luke didn't you?"

"A few…lessons he called them. Not really training I guess," she shrugged.

"They didn't include political strategy?" Leia asked, getting a shake of the head, "Galactic law?" another shake of the head, "Languages and cultures?"

"Nothing like that. It all had to do with the Force."

"Of course it did, Luke was never one for book learning," Leia smiled softly, "But, according to the Jedi training of the past and the regimen that Luke developed there was quite a bit of the stuff I just listed to you. You'll need to do your due diligence if you want to become a Jedi and bring peace to the galaxy."

"So…I have to learn about politics?" Rey asked, not entirely excited about it.

"If you want to be useful in a negotiation, yes. The Jedi way, ideally, isn't to pull out a lightsaber and started waving it around when things don't go their own way. You must be able to use logic and reason and negotiate compromises and peace so that they don't have to draw a lightsaber. And I think I am right to assume there wasn't much in the way of politics on Jakku?"

Rey shrugged and shook her head.

"So, we will start with the basics of politics, what kind of system are you dealing with? Is it a democracy, a dictatorship, a monarchy, a theocracy, patriarchy, monarchy, or even a corporate hegemony. You see, all of those operate differently day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and even year-to-year. To work peacefully with them you must understand what they are and what you will need to do for each individual case."

"Sounds confusing," Rey furrowed her brow.

"Well, it quite often can be and it's why politics can be such a tricky thing."

"So…what exactly am I to do as a Jedi, with politics I mean?" Rey asked.

"As a Jedi your duty would be to keep the peace. This is done through negotiations. You must be able to sit down with people and listen to what it is they want and how badly they want it. From there you talk out how both parties can get enough of what they both want to keep that peace."

"How do I get them to even listen to me in the first place? It seems like if two groups are fighting one person asking for a moment to talk won't even get a second look," Rey replied, bringing up a good point.

"Direct appeals Rey, direct appeals. You must use the tools at your disposal to get their leaders' attention."

"Like a lightsaber and the Force?" Rey responded.

"If need-be. But I've always found that if they're men you can tend to get their attention with a confident entrance and a nice outfit."

"Ugh, men are pigs," Rey rolled her eyes.

"But they can be manipulated and reasoned with. Anyone can so long as you provide them reason to come to the table."

"How?"

"You'll learn given time."

"General. Commander Dameron and Lieutenant Meeko have arrived from Nubia," Leia heard on her comm, and sighed in disappointment before giving a parting word to her.

"I've got some textbooks in the Falcon on a pad somewhere, I'll assign some reading for you," Leia whispered and pulled up her comm, "Very well, bring him in and prepare that new superspeeder and the cash for transport aboard their yacht. They depart immediately upon being made ready. Let's go."

Location: Canto Casino, Planet Catonica

"Finn wasn't kidding, this place is unbelievable," Poe declared as he and Zay walked into the large casino parlor, witnessing the amassing of extreme wealth and class around them. Thankfully they blended in enough to be able to get away with what they were here for, straight-up casing out the joint.

"Unbelievable is right," Zay said as both of them moved along, her holding a jeweled purse and a tight black dress that went to her knees and had a tail and a thick feathered boa around her neck to accent her dark makeup and her long wavy hair, "Look at 'em all."

"There's probably more credits in this room right now than there ever was in the Resistance's coffers," Poe agreed, "And we're gonna nab it. Let's head to the bar, we can get a feel for from there."

Poe pulled out a few loose credits to pay for a couple of short glasses of Bestine Bourbon and toasted to Zay with a wink.

"Well honey," Poe stated, deciding to dive into their cover, "Here's to our honeymoon."

"To us," Zay nodded with a bright but rehearsed smile and she brought the glass to her lips she didn't even allow it into her mouth. Bourbon is supposed to be sipped and savored, and not drinking any could easily be confused for sipping to the casual observer.

Poe did likewise, and pulled out a camera, and started scanning across the busy atrium, sweeping left, and then sweeping right. To his left he caught sight of their main target, the chips and credits exchange booth built into the wall and protected by a finely decorated fence of gold-encrusted durasteel bars with multi-armed droids behind, doing incredibly rapid dispensing and counting of both credits and chips. The chips had a simple chart saying what each color was and how much each was worth. There was nothing smaller than a hundred credits, and the big ones went to twenty thousand credits. And Poe was seeing hundreds of them being moved in and out.

"There's millions of credits being moved in and out of those windows," Poe leaned over and whispered in Zay's ear.

"Did you see the guards? Don't narrow your eyes, smile and take a drink, darling," Zay replied lowly.

"Guards?" Poe asked, eyes darting around, and saw them, and this time took a real drink, "Got 'em, four of them, two on both sides of the windows and two behind the columns watching the line."

"I've got two more pairs walking the inner perimeter on both sides. Those red suits and collar plates make 'em easy to pick out," Zay motioned with her chin.

"They're armed, Relby K-25's," Poe agreed, "Same as the cops…"

"Finn and Rose didn't say anything about armed guards except for cops," Zay narrowed her eyes.

"Must've hired 'em on when they wrecked the place."

"Must have."

"They won't be it, no way a casino this wealthy only has eight guards," Poe shook his head, "C'mon, let's see what else is around."

Outside, at the main commercial spaceport the Millennium Falcon sat idly as Shriv sat at the small holo table playing Dejarik against R2D2, who'd tagged along. He was having a bugger of a time against the droid, and it looked at the board and at him and back at the board rapidly, focusing and looking back and forth, and chirping at him occasionally as he took his time.

"Oh, I've got ya now," Shriv said and confidently tapped the control, "Forked! Haha, not so logical now are ya?"

The droid squealed at him in joy, and subsequently moved one his holographic creatures into a new spot, this time, Shriv found himself forked. It basically meant no matter what he did he would lose a piece. He'd been so sure of this move and had contemplated it so long that the holographic monsters on the board had turned to appearing bored as per their programming.

"No, no, no, hold on a second, I thought of every move that can possibly be made! You pulled something Artoo, better not be cheating," a nasty chirp came from the droid along with a few snaps and a twirl of its mechanical appendages aimed at Shriv, "Oh I'm the one playing dirty? Last I checked these meat sticks can't override a computer's programming," he said defensively holding up his hands.

A growl from Chewbacca in the engine bay came back at him. The large Wookiee had been busying himself doing some long-awaited maintenance on some minor systems and annoyances, like the changing out the filters on the air scrubbers for life support to fix a stuffy smell starting to develop, fixing a leak in the auxiliary pump by replacing all the old worn-out gaskets, and tightening a few bolts below the floor plates to get them to stop jiggling around any time anything put pressure on them. Time was not a friend of an old ship like the Falcon, but she was as good as anything in the galaxy for speed, maneuverability, and sheer character. And Chewbacca was not about to let his oldest friend's ship come anywhere near the ranks of the ships who'd just fallen to pieces from lack of maintenance. The problem he faced was that he'd had Han to give him a hand before all this, and right now Shriv was not being much of a help.

"Hey, I got those nests out of the walls like you said and I rewired through the bulkhead supports, again like you told me. But they're only going to get worse if you don't get new wall panels or at least keep your door shut so critters like that don't get in in the first place!"

Chewie grunted and shook his head as he continued his own work. But he perked up when he heard a beeping that got his and Shriv's attention.

"That's Poe with the pictures," Shriv called out and went to the computer in the rec room, sitting down and pulled up the incoming message, "Got 'em, a full view of who's there and what sort of security we're dealing with…"

Chewie got up, and looked at the pictures himself from the deck plates where he held himself on his elbows looking curiously. He roared a question to Shriv as he scrolled through.

"No…those don't like Kashyyyk panels to me, the grain's too loose, don't your trees back home have a denser one?" Chewie just shrugged and nodded, "Anyway, it looks like we've got security, uniformed guards. No telling how many plainclothes ones are just roving around, listening and watching. Zay should be getting ready to send Dio to find the vault any moment now, I mean unless they're busy," he smirked.

Chewie growled in response, not exactly sure what he was getting at. But R2 gave a definite answer.

"Oh if Iden had heard you say that about her daughter you'd be disassembled so fast your head would be spinning blue one," Shriv answered, and Chewie asked another question, this time a bit more personal, "Zay and Poe? Hmm…I don't know, I mean I can see those two happening one day, maybe. But I just don't think Zay's really ready to commit to anyone yet," Chewie gave a cock of the head and a grunt of why, "Look the girl's lost both of her parents in the space of less than what, a month? You don't exactly feel like getting out into the singles' scene after something like that."

Chewie just nodded in understanding he'd lost someone close to him, someone he loved like a brother. Like Shriv said you don't really feel like committing again after that. But there are exceptions to every rule. Rey was one of them, speaking of whom, he hadn't seen her in a while and asked about her to Shriv as he downloaded the specs that he was now getting from Dio in the casino hotel.

"No I have not seen Rey, she said she was going to look around a bit. Once I get this finished downloading and sent to the General I'll go with you to look for her, y'know, make sure she's not lost or getting into trouble."

Chewie didn't feel like waiting, and left the ship after snatching his bowcaster, and decided to follow the directions given to them by Leia about meeting their contact on the planet who had made up their safehouse for the mission and was supposedly working on a way into the casino. He didn't have to go far, the route was a straight one, and no one dared bother an armed Wookiee unless they had numbers or were likewise armed. Chewie found himself at a stone shack on the outskirts of the city, and saw the light shining through the boarded up windows that indicated that someone was indeed home.

The area was sparse of much habitation. High grasses save for a trail trampled through it recently surrounded the house, and a broken down old speeder and a long-scavenged DUM droid on its side gave the only indication of its past residents' lives. Chewie could sense a safehouse when he saw one, and called out to Rey, to see if she had indeed made it. A moment went by, and he saw the now-blonde-haired girl scramble out under the board nailed across the door frame.

"Hello Chewie, already done on the repairs?" she asked, putting her hands in her pockets in her coat. He gave a negative response, stating he was worried and came to check on her, "Oh, right, sorry I've been busy too. These guys aren't really that good with droids. I figured I'd give 'em a hand fixing up their friend."

Chewie peaked inside, and saw that there were three human children, poor ones, all gathered around a tiny mouse droid painted yellow and white that spinning and beeping as they giggled at its antics. He could tell Rey was very happy to bring that kind of joy to these kids, and that was enough to lighten her spirits by a notable measure.

"Oh, they also said they know a way into the casino, a service tunnel that the staff uses for maintenance purposes behind the scenes," Rey told Chewie, "They say it's accessible through the sewer. This is it, this is our way in."

Chewie told her that Poe and Zay had already gotten inside, and were pushing intel to Shriv who was sending it to Leia who would be making their own plans in conjunction with their troops and pilots.

"They're okay?" Rey asked, concerned for her friends. Chewie nodded, and Rey now cocked her eyebrow, "Think they'll do what the General told them?"

This time Chewie shrugged, he had no idea how far the two undercover Resistance officers were willing to go to make their cover believable.

 **I think that's far enough, I'll pick up where we left off in the next chapter, things will start getting…steamy I would say. No lemons, I don't do lemons, I think they make people uncomfortable who aren't explicitly looking for them. And that's not something I wanna do to anyone. But if relationships get to that point in the course of the story I won't act like their Jesuit priests or anything, if things happen they'll happen, I just won't give a play-by-play. I will however give a play-by-play of coming battles, of which I have planned many.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: Trouble undercover, and relics of the past are still to be found.**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Location: Planet Rugosa

Finn had learned to pilot their shuttle well enough to be the group's pilot for the mission, and when they came out of hyperspace he knew that they were in roughly the right place.

"No ships on my scope, no signs of technology at all," Rose called out, and started scanning the coordinates provided by Leia, "And there is an old base down there…"

"Alright," Finn responded, smiling at her, and the sergeant in charge of the troops with them walked in.

"We've got a base to check out?"

"Sure do, we're making an approach now," Finn acknowledged, "Should be there shortly."

"Excellent, I'll get the boys ready."

The shuttle dove through the clouds, and the forests of purple and green land coral lit stretched out above the tan sand and rocks. A few massive corals with leaf-like appendages were scattered about, some big enough to land on. Finn saw that the base coordinates placed them within a box canyon with steep walls that was covered by the "leaves" of the largest green corals. They all saw that their destination was actually incredibly well-hidden. From above, it was invisible, from the side as they approached they were able to make out the door of the hangar built into the base and a row of buildings and a pair of power generators built into the wall and a runway up to the cliff. Small purple corals were starting to grow on the ground and on the buildings, such had been the extent of the base's abandonment.

"Go ahead and land out there, we're hidden now," the sergeant instructed.

"Yeah, we also don't know how stable this place is, if it's from the Clone Wars it's been abandoned for more than forty years," Rose reminded him.

"Don't want any rocks coming down on top of us," a trooper behind them laughed.

"Especially if this base has nothing of value," one of the others reminded them.

The shuttle dropped down onto the tarmac and Finn powered them down gradually and lowered the ramp. The four Resistance troopers were immediately out of the shuttle, dropping to a knee with blasters aimed out, creating a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree field of security. They wore tan fatigues with hoods and dark brown vests and brown pants, decent for their current surroundings. Each had their helmet's face plate on for a full protective mode.

"Clear," the sergeant called out.

"No surprise there," Finn shrugged as he walked out, EL-16 in hand, and saw just how derelict this place was.

"Man, not much for a base if we do choose it," Rose noted.

Around them it looked as if the base was a good windstorm away from coming apart at the seams. Metal panels on the buildings had paint flaking away, rust and dry rot was all over them, and piles of collected sand were against the bases of the buildings everywhere they looked. The main armored door was pretty much rusted in place they all saw as they approached, shining their flashlights into the interior of the hangar which had several V-19 Torrent Starfighters falling apart inside and a single LAAT/i hull in a corner. Supply crates were scattered about, and fuel canisters that had long since breached had long evaporated remnants of their contents around them. There were pieces of the ceiling on the ground or hanging by a single few wires hanging over their heads. The Republic had never bothered returning to this place after the war, and it seemed that no one else had either.

"Man, this place is falling apart," Finn said, hearing a slight echo of his own voice.

He reached over to a V-19 fighter whose wing was still pivoted up and shook it to see how tight its mechanics were, but the wing just creaked and fell over onto the floor, sending a cloud of dust and sand into the air with a loud bang.

"Easy, you wanna bring this place down on top of us?!" one of the troops called out.

"Looks like it'll do that anyway," the sergeant growled, shining a flashlight around at the structures holding up the ceiling, none of which were in good shape, "Better call the General, this place is too far-gone for us to use it as a base."

"We're not done yet, there's gotta be more here," Finn replied in protest and pushed on, into the facility's main entrance where he saw the dusty interior with black metallic floors and metal walls and ceilings. It was classically Republic-Imperial style.

"Finn!" Rose called out, and shook her head to follow.

Neither did either of them know that a sensor tripwire was rigged across the doorway, and when it was tripped a signal went out to a long-dormant trap. Machines were awoken, deadly machines with a deadly purpose. But the six Resistance members weren't even aware of their actual existence, as old as their past conflict was they never expected a trap set for the former owners of the base by their former enemies.

"Alright, but be quick you two!" the sergeant called out, shaking his head unhappily, "It's hot out here!"

"Sarge, we've got a storm coming," one of their men called out, pointing to a black flashing wall of clouds.

"Oh isn't that perfect," the man growled as he lifted a hand to his comm attached to his wrist, "Finn, we've got a big storm system coming, probably bringing wind and rain too strong to take off."

"It is the rainy season after all. Expect some big storms."

The four troops split into pairs, each taking sections of the outdoor buildings, half and half, aiming to check them out before the storm hit rendering any sort of move to go outside extremely unpleasant. They each had their EL-16HFE's, newer models with the circular forward loop sight up front on the barrel housing and long scopes up top. With full military-grade combat gear and uniforms these weren't the volunteers of the old Resistance, these were fully realized Republic troops, they knew what they were doing, each pair went up to a door and scoped it out, sweeping their flashlights attached to their rifles with expert precision, blasters leveled at the ready, expecting anything to be hiding in the falling apart metal barracks.

"There's nothing here," the sergeant in charge of the fireteam said as he and his partner moved through one of the buildings, and started to drop their guard.

"Nah, seems like a waste of fuel to me sarge. Think these Resistance folks know what they're doing?" the private next to him said as the young man moved forward into an open doorway.

"Some do," the sergeant responded as he lifted up a crate lid, but only found some old tools.

Then he heard a blood-curdling scream and whipped around to see his comrade's lower body being lifted into the air, legs flailing wildly. When the sergeant reached him the man's body dropped, and he was left looking at several small holes cutting through his uniform starting to ooze blood and one through his yellow blast goggles, now turning red. The man looked up and could only get out a scream and tried lifting his blaster rifle. But the weapon only went off into the sides of the building as death nerves twitched his fingers when sharp metal legs drove down into his shoulders, chest, and one into the face. But the crashing of thunder drowned out his scream and the flashing of lightning lit up the sky. The danger was now very real.

Location: Canto Bight, Planet Cantonica

The parties here were lavish, wines and other exotic liquor flowed like water, in one particular case Poe and Zay were amazed to see an actual bubbler flowing with champagne and bubbling with carbonators in the bottom and kept cold. It was enough that Poe felt like he was an inch away from just drawing a blaster and robbing everyone in range. But that would have netted only a solid twenty thousand credits, not much when the promise of millions was so close at hand. The two left their latest party, and Poe handed the ticket for their speeder to the valet at the hotel and Zay looked out at the city which was before them.

"This place…how is it so many can be so rich?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Weapons and war, mines and fuel, important businesses to war net big profits. It is what it is, not much we can do but take what we can from where we can," Poe sighed as the speeder came zipping around the corner.

"And we're doing that right? We're not just sitting here enjoying the spoils of these people's immorality?" Zay snapped quietly as she got to the speeder door.

"It's a cover, you know that, come on, let's go back to the room, maybe order some room service and see how the Resistance is doing."

"Fine," Zay sighed after a moment and the two got into the speeder, "Best go the long way, enjoy the ride a bit, for the sake of our cover."

Poe sighed, and in thought he stopped and looked over at Zay, "Wanna drive? Seems like you could use a pick-me-up."

"Huh?" Zay asked, caught slightly off-guard by the offer.

"When I'm down I usually go flying whatever I can, I think driving a superspeeder on these roads might just be what you need after…well after the last month."

"Yeah, maybe it is," Zay smiled warmly and the two gratefully switched places and Zay winked to him and then floored it, launching both of them into their bucket seats until the acceleration lessened, "Whoa, I like this," she said as she turned them around a sweeping turn on the road along the seaside.

"See? Great isn't it?"

"You know how to treat a girl that's for sure Poe," Zay said as they reached a hairpin turn in the road and banked hard, with no small amount of expertise banking into the apex of the corner and emerging on the throttle back into the straight and the gentle curve of the road.

"Oh I have always known how to do that," Poe smirked confidently.

"Oh is that so?" Zay deadpanned, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Yeah, but granted most girls aren't like you," Poe responded, but kicked himself as soon as the words left his mouth.

"What's that supposed to mean, 'most girls aren't like me'?"

"Well, not many have fought the First Order, or whose parents taught them to fly X-Wings or were former special forces."

"Oh, and that makes me any less of a girl? Is that it Dameron?" Zay said with a much more serious tone.

"Hey now you're putting words in my mouth I just said most girls aren't like you," Poe raised his hands defensively.

"Relax Poe I'm messing with you," Zay laughed, pulling them onto a very windy road that took them on a scenic road towards the city.

"Good, was afraid I'd have to put the real charm on to salvage myself there."

"The real charm huh?" Zay again deadpanned, hoping that she wasn't going to here a script pulled from any men's magazine on how to talk to women, "What does that look like?"

"Well you asked for it," Poe smirked and sat up and leaned on the armrest between them, and then he tipped his head down and adjusted his tone, "Did anyone at that party tell you that their dates refused to allow them to come near us because of how you looked in that dress? Because I could tell a jealous woman when I saw one, and I saw a bunch of jealous women looking at you."

"Is that so?" Zay remarked.

"And I'm glad they didn't, because frankly I can't stand the thought of some pompous rich desk rider even attempting to woo you and turn you into something they show off to clients and business partners. You deserve better," Poe replied, "Because the moment they got close enough to look into your eyes they would have abandoned all commitments and all pretenses to call you their own."

"My eyes?" Zay asked, looking to Poe, this one was new to her.

"Your eyes are windows and mirrors rolled into one perfect device, it tells me who you are, and it reminds me of who I have to be to be on the same level. When I look into your eyes I see someone who is proud of who they are, and is willing to fight with every ounce of their being to be that person," Poe explained, reaching a passionate crescendo at the end.

"Hmm…not bad Poe, if that were for real I'd give it a B plus," Zay laughed.

"I never said anything about making anything up," Poe smiled back, "I meant every word. When I was in that party with you every lewd glance from those stuck-up pretty boys made me despise them, and every glance of envy from those pompous fake broads made me proud to say I was with you."

Zay let her jaw drop slightly and looked at Poe silently out of the corner of her eye, that was something no one had ever said to her about her. The immediate feeling that she got was pride, joy even. If what Poe was saying was true then it was certainly the most sincere flirting that she'd ever been target of. However, she wasn't entirely sure that what Poe was saying was sincere, she barely knew him. They talked a bit on the ship, but they hadn't spoken a peep of their pasts or aspects of who they actually were since arriving on the planet, it was just too dangerous. This was a first from Poe, and was a first for her. She held her tongue, she didn't want to keep playing like she wasn't interested, Poe was handsome, brave, and passionate, good things to look for she'd been told. The possibility was one to explore, so she didn't want to make herself look like she was a deflector of all advances and force Poe to look elsewhere. However, her mom always said to strike a balance between being hard-to-get and being easy. But Poe interrupted her thoughts with a big bright smile.

"Struck a cord there didn't I?" he teased.

"N-no, okay that wasn't bad, I mean…shutup!" she warned him as Poe seemed ready to burst out laughing. She could feel herself getting flustered, and she knew for a fact Poe saw it, "This is new for me okay? I never really dated very much growing up, we moved around too much. My dad kinda encouraged me to find someone, but my mom…well, I was her little girl, she wanted me to wait until we'd settled somewhere. Neither of them…well, you know."

"I'm sorry Zay, Shriv told me how close you guys were. I remember how hard it was when I lost my mom when I was little, she's the one who taught me how to fly. I learned to fly sitting on her lap in her old A-Wing, and now…I every time I sit in the cockpit I can't help but feel her chin on my shoulder as she looked over to tell me for tenth time what this button did or what that switch controlled or no you can't fire the lasers at that piece of debris…she was…amazing. It's why I love to fly so much, it reminds me of mom, and she'll always be there with me."

Zay steadied her shuddering breath, and tried to fight the water pooling in her eyes. With the makeup she was wearing it wouldn't look very good to shed even one tear. Tears were usually a sign of weakness, but she couldn't help it, she missed her family, the pain was still close. But Poe's opening up to her helped.

"Thanks Poe," she whispered, smiling as best she could.

"Your mom and dad would be proud of you y'know," Poe nodded respectfully, and then looked out of the window, sensing that now was not the best time to push any sort of romantic advances upon her. That day would come, Poe sensed that there was something receptive there, but courtesy dictated that he give Zay some time to fully come to terms with her parents' passing. How much time he wasn't entirely certain, that was up to her.

The two reached the casino within a few more minutes, and they resumed their roles as a couple on vacation and were back to acted smiles and lovey dovey gushing over one another. It wasn't comfortable in the least for either of them, but they didn't have to do much, not many people were out and about amongst the hotel rooms at the moment. The casino and dining areas on the other hand were packed full of guests and employees, including different security guards. This was a pattern for the group duo, they'd counted at least twenty different individual security guards amongst the casino tables and now had their routes memorized perfectly. Other things that they committed to memory were the high-points of business, and where the security cameras were, of which there were many.

That last part had come courtesy of Zay's ID-10 Tactical Droid, Dio, formerly her mother's. The little droid had spent over two hours combing through the hotel ducts on their first night, tapping into the security circuits from within the security hub. It had been tense watching the droid's feed, but the little guy had successfully gotten in behind the sleepy guard and silently downloaded the blueprints for the casino, its grounds, its security, and its support structure. Everything needed to make the assault happen. But Poe and Zay still had to be on site for the sake of measuring security in person, seeing if the patrons brought their own security with them that Dio would never see in the data he collected, and to get a count of how many civilians would be in the way and to map out what they were doing and how to avoid casualties. Plus they needed to be on the inside to effect any unforeseen sabotage to assist their comrades.

Poe and Zay still had time to figure out things. The attack wasn't scheduled to occur until the end of the casino's big party-laden celebration. They would wait until the casino had amassed millions of credits into its vaults and then strike it hard and fast. If they used the full might of their starfighters and full compliments from their shuttles then they'd overwhelm the local police, casino security, and assorted bodyguards. That meant Poe and Zay might not have had to take an active role, but they wanted to. At the moment though the most sensitive part, getting information out, was being handled by Dio who was manually transporting his data back to the Millennium Falcon for transmission, leaving their room empty.

"So, what're you thinking for dinner honey?" Poe asked as the two reached their room and Zay pulled out a key from her borrowed purse and presented it to the reader which beeped, flashed green, and opened the double sliding doors.

The two entered the luxurious room, stepping down the three stairs to the main floor where they had a white leather half-circular couch around a large circular white ottoman on a shag carpet. The bedroom and bathroom were to the left, through an opaque glass automatic door. Poe kicked off his shoes and went to the table by the window where they had a small table for two and picked up the menu.

"I don't know…surprise me I guess," Zay shrugged, undoing the pin that had kept her hair up all night and let it bounce free, "I'm gonna wash off this makeup and change."

"Got it," Poe nodded and undid his own tie and unbuttoned his top button on his white shirt and looked through the sizeable menu. He was about to tap send on his order for them when he noticed something.

On such thick carpet like what they had footsteps usually left an imprint, and if they were wet the print was as noticeable as it would in snow. He looked down and saw several such prints in the carpet by the window-door and followed them, and his eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat when he saw the prints lead from the balcony door to the bedroom door. Poe dropped everything and pulled out a pocket knife he'd always had and burst into the bedroom. The first thing he saw was Zay on the ground to the right, lying facedown on the tile into the bathroom, a three-pronged dart in her arm and eyes closed. Poe looked around but a sharp jolt of pain pinched him in the back of his left arm and he looked down and saw the same kind of dart in Zay now imbedded into him. The dart found itself removed, making a slight tear in his suit just as Poe began feeling a powerful tiredness swallowing him. Like Zay he'd been drugged, but by whom?

Looking about Poe didn't see anything, but then he saw the small squat fishlike figure of a black-clothed purple, blue, and red-skinned Patrolian holding a rotating wrist device and a small jetpack and big boots. The little being had hidden himself behind the bed and now emerged, ready to take advantage of his trap.

"Well, well, well, lookie what we've got here," the being laughed happily through a characteristic gurgle of his species as Poe started to drift away as the individual said and leaned down to Poe, and then to Zay, "Smells like money, hmm…pretty money…"

Poe tried lifting his head, but there was nothing in him capable of pushing through the massive dose of tranquilizer. The black closed in, and there was not a thing he could do about it.

Location: Abandoned Republic Base, Planet Rugosa

"This place is a bust Finn, sorry," Rose sighed as the two exited the door into the hangar, and both saw that the storm had finally arrived, and was pounding the area with sheets of large rain as thunder boomed right over their heads and lightning lit up the sky.

"Yeah, there's not enough here to make the expense it worth it," Finn shook his head, he didn't like it, but the base was simply too old and too decrepit.

"Best just call the General, maybe we can see about looking into nearby systems," Rose suggested, trying make something of this mission.

"Hold on," Finn replied, looking around, "where are the others?"

The two looked around, shining their flashlights around, searching for the other Resistance members. They'd left them out here, but hadn't heard anything in some time.

"Hey sarge?!" Rose called out, walking out into the hangar, "Where are you guys?!"

Finn followed, but he could just feel something being off, and he couldn't put his finger on it. Something was wrong. He pulled his EL-16 off his back and held it ready, and then he and Rose both saw something, a figure standing by the shuttle.

"They're probably in the shuttle, there's one," Finn pointed, and started running towards the shuttle to avoid the drips from above that were coming down in sheets.

"Finn! Wait!" Rose tried to stop him, but then saw something, the figure turned, but it didn't appear as if the man had touched the ground.

"Wait…sarge?" Finn said as he squinted through the rain and then saw a spider-like droid with red photoreceptors moving and holding the body of the soldier and now was looking at Finn, "Oh no…Rose, droids!"

He lifted his blaster and aimed it right at the droid and fired, sending a blue bolt right past the rapidly moving droid which tossed the body at Finn who dodged it and moved to the side and the body landed in a puddle and he saw the damage the droid had done but then the droid came scrambling towards him, sparking and warbling rapidly. Finn kept firing, landing a shot that severed a leg and the droid skidded to a stop and Finn then fired into the top of it, panting rapidly as Rose ran up next to him and kept firing as malfunctioning half-functioning mini droids started to scramble out. Finn fired as well as the dozens of mini droids came out. They didn't stop until there was nothing but debris at their feet.

"An old Assassin Probe, I heard about these, bounty hunters still use them," Rose informed him, kicking it.

"I think we know why the Republic never came back," Finn nodded, "We need to take their advice and get outta here."

"Uh…Finn, I think I know what happened to the others," Rose tapped on his shoulder and pointed at three more figures, limply hanging from the side of the barracks across from them.

"More droids, great…" Finn said as a dozen more assassin probes surfaced from the building, and they saw that they were all malfunctioning, barely even operating.

"Let's go Finn…" Rose implored on him.

"Yeah, I'd rather not stick around."

The two lifted their blasters and started firing as the group of dangerous droids started to charge. The clanking of their pointed legs striking the ground filled the air as rain poured down around the two Resistance members who fired as quickly as they could to ward off the coming attack. But with every struck assassin probe dozens of mini droids popped out and continued the charge.

"Get aboard and get the ship started now!" Finn implored to Rose.

"Done!" Rose replied and turned into the shuttle and ran back inside.

Finn heard the ship starting up and turned around as well, running into the passenger bay and pounded against the hatch control as the swarm now approached in a sea of tiny droids and a handful of larger assassin probes. He heard the tinking of metal on metal as the door closed at the last minute, but a sharp jab against his shin made him look down and notice that one of the smaller droids had managed to sneak in, and was stabbing its needle-like legs into his pants. Finn started waving his leg around, yelping and yelling with each stab and stomp of his foot to get the droid off until he finally managed to kick it off and flung it against the door and stomped on it as it ran at him again. Rose had the ship lifting off by now, and they were powering through the storm and was trying to look back to Finn.

"Finn! You okay?!" she yelled to him.

"I'm fine, one of the little ones gave me a scare."

"You're bleeding," she pointed out to him as the rain slackened off and the ship rose into the upper atmosphere.

Finn looked down and frowned as he saw that there was indeed a stain on his shin and a drip of blood was being left as it dribbled down his shoe. But he didn't make much of it, "I'm fine, just a couple pinpricks from its legs."

"Yeah, but they've got barbs, best get a bandage on it," Rose advised, "Must've hurt huh?"

"I'm not worried about that, I'm more worried how we came out here didn't find a base worth moving to and…we lost four good men," Finn sighed as he pulled his pantleg up and saw the small wounds, barely big enough to matter, but there were about a dozen of them.

"It's not your fault y'know, a trap was laid for the Republic, that was over fifty years ago. How were you to even know to suspect it?"

"I know, but we're so few that every sacrifice has to count for something," Finn reminded her as he nonchalantly took a disinfectant and cleaned himself up and wrapped a small bandage around him slight pinpricks, "I just hope everyone else is having better luck."

"Getting a call, it's General Organa," Rose called out after a few moments of her trying to figure out what to do with themselves.

"Put it through," Finn said as he dropped his jacket over the co-pilot seat and sat down.

The figure of Leia came up on the comm station in between the two pilot seats and Finn sighed to have to break the news.

"Finn, Rose, hadn't heard from you two in a bit. What's your status?" the blue figure inquired of them.

"General, we found the old Republic base like you said but…" Finn started, but paused to fully gather himself. But Rose beat him to it.

"It was rigged with old Separatist assassin droids, it was a trap set for the old Republic if they ever came back. Sergeant Hokes and his team didn't make it and we barely got out ourselves."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Leia replied sadly, shaking her head, "Were there any signs?"

"No ma'am, the place was almost coming apart."

"There was no way for you to predict or sense a trap, not on an old Clone Wars era base, not after fifty years. I'm just glad you two at least made it. In the meantime I do have some good news. We made contact with the Republic base on Serenno, it was as the new officers reported and more. A thousand personnel were rallied there from nearby systems to add to the six hundred already there. They've got three full squadrons of X-Wings and a squadron of A-Wings on site, along with ships, real ships. Niv reported that they've got a commercial tanker, four _Vakbeor_ -Class transports, an escort frigate, and a pair of corvettes. And he said they have enough shuttles to transport personnel and supplies and equipment."

"Type of ships?" Rose asked, very interested now.

"Mothballed ones, the troops pulled them from breaking yards over Serenno, Nebulon-C and _Free_ _Virgillia_ -Class, gunship variants, or so I'm told. They're preparing to evacuate as we speak."

"How long?" Finn instantly asked, "We're still out here, we can still find us a base."

"That's what I was hoping you'd say. I'm sending you coordinates, the planet Hrill, an old colony that got wiped out by the Hutts after its owner refused to pay a debt. I hear it's nice, lots of rainforests, meaning there's plenty to hide us if we can find the right place to establish ourselves. See what you can find there," Leia ordered the two.

"We'll be there in…" Rose trailed off as she calculated the jump, "About three hours, it's close."

"Good, see what you can find, someplace near the ocean is preferable so we can limit our workload as far as defensive fortifications. We've got an engineering officer here is woefully bored and seeking something to do," Leia laughed.

"We'll contact you when we arrive General," Finn nodded respectfully.

"See you in three hours."

The transmission cut off and Finn dropped back into his seat, shaking his head in astonishment.

"A thousand people? Fifty fighters and eight ships? Jeez," the man scoffed, but filled with hope, "We might have a chance now."

"We have more fighters and ships and people than we ever had," Rose acknowledged, "Way more. I think the Resistance itself back before Starkiller Base only numbered about six hundred. We're double that now."

"And who knows how many more troops, pilots, and crews are out there hiding and waiting for someone to rally towards? If we could rally a hundred starfighters and eleven ships and two thousand people in less than a few weeks imagine what we can do in a month or-or a year?"

"This war is only beginning Finn, the galaxy hasn't lost hope yet."

"Which means our job just became that much more important," Finn reminded Rose.

"Let's go then."

The shuttle launched into hyperspace, its destination being the Hrill System.

Location: Canto Bight, Planet Cantonica

Rey was leading Shriv forward behind the young boy that they knew as Temiri, a stable boy at the race track. He cared for the Fathiers and the stable itself, and therefore knew it like the back of his hand. The boy was trying to sneak the two Resistance members into the stables where there was a sewer entrance that was in cover and had a full run of the city from the police prison to the stable without anyone knowing they were there.

The boy stopped, hearing something in the bushes ahead of them. The two Resistance members were armed, and held their blasters tightly, but then from the bushes between them a familiar yellow and white droid and a red photoreceptor burst out and stopped within inches of the three. It was erratic, snapping its claws and beeping at them rapidly.

"Easy, easy, easy little guy," Rey pleaded, knowing that the disturbance would be heard.

"Dio, hey what's going on?" Shriv asked the droid, which landed on his outstretched hand. It immediately began to speak to him, and Shriv's facial expression changed to concern, "Poe and Zay are in trouble, looks like a bounty hunter's nabbed 'em."

"What?! We have to save them," Rey whispered back.

"I know, I know, the problem is that bounty hunters usually don't work alone out here. If they are alone then they'll have a plan."

"Or he's just stupid," Rey tersely said back.

"Yeah there's that too. But there's another aspect to this, we have to up our time table."

"You're right," Rey nodded but then she sensed something, and seemingly the boy did too, and they both looked to see the stable manager, the ill-tempered and ugly Bargwill Tomder.

He had sensed them, following the noises they made and their scent thanks to his species' heightened senses. The Cloddogran was stomping over to them with his whip in hand and their guide Temiri rushed out, and spoke to him, pleading that he was just out with friends. But the manager was not fooled and raised his whip in one of his hands and struck down, lashing the boy's shoulder with an electrostatic shock that made him yelp in pain and fall back onto his back and knocked his hat off.

"Hey!" Rey protested, and sensed anger creeping into her as the equally angry Cloddogran raised his whip and lashed out against them, popping Rey against the chest from a distance, yelling at them in his gruff language.

Shriv lifted his blaster without a word, the manager lifted his hands in surrender when he saw the GLIE-44 aimed at his head. Rey had recovered from the blow and took the whip from his hand and then snapped the wooden shaft across her knee and then stacked them together and went to smack the man across the face. But his upper right arm was up and blocked the attack and the lower arm reached out and grabbed Rey around the throat, and forced her windpipe to constrict with great strength, nearly lifting the blonde up and between he and Shriv.

"Rey!" Shriv yelled, "Out of the way!"

"Trying…" she struggled out and tried to reach for her weapon and then felt herself brought closer to the wretched man and kicked him in the nose, getting quite a good blow that sent blood spewing from the odd gnarled nasal structures. But it worked, and he dropped her and Shriv fired a stun blast that dropped him to his knees and then he hit him again full-force and he keeled over.

"You alright?" Rey asked the boy, who nodded at the two.

"Yes, this way," he told them, "We're almost there."

"Right, Rey, go with him, I'll be right there, gotta get rid of this guy and call the general, we're hitting this place now. Can't risk Poe and Zay being turned into the police and the owners moving their cash."

"I'll get Poe," Rey nodded.

"Don't start without me."

 **And I think this'll do for this chapter. I'm actually having a lot of fun with this one, and I'm beginning to figure out a series of plots and potential battles as we're drawing closer to open war as the Resistance grows in strength. In the meantime our first big battle is coming, I'll get going on it soon, this is a very fast-paced section of story that deserves to be updated soon, so I'll do so ASAP.**

 **Also, I know that the ships of the Resistance supposedly included other Mon Cal cruisers but the movie states that they had only what was shown and subsequently destroyed, so apparently something happened to their previous cruisers and they only had the four ships we saw on screen. So until more ship classes are revealed I'll keep them restricted to what is shown in TLJ.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: The Resistance strikes.**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Location: Resistance Headquarters, Planet Dantooine

"General, flash message from the team on Canto Bight," a comms officer called out to Leia who had actually taken a break to take a nap in her office.

"Read it," Leia said, looking at the intercom receiver at her stone desk.

"Dameron and Meeko compromised, bounty hunter responsible. Mission a go, recommend immediate go," the word came.

"How many fighters and troops can we send?" Leia asked.

"Red and Blue Squadrons are ready and we can dispatch our strike team immediately. They'll be there in six hours."

"Six hours?!" Leia replied quickly, "They need help now Lieutenant Connix," then she remembered their newest acquisition, "What about Serenno? They have four squadrons and several large ships and a full battalion of troops."

"We could send them, they could be there in less than an hour."

"Get word to them, have them deploy immediately," Leia ordered, and then sighed, she sensed that something was happening out there, but at this point her worries were growing as her responsibility did likewise, "And any word on our recruitment cell development?"

"We've reestablished contacts on Chandrila, Corellia, Coruscant, Anaxes, Commenor, Fondor, Sullust, Rodia, Kashyyyk, Bothawui, and Lothal. But we're still unable to contact Mon Cala," Commander D'Acy said, she was one of the few survivors from Crait, and a right-hand to Leia.

"Any word of the planet at all?" Leia asked.

"Nothing aside from holonet broadcasts, the First Order's moved a massive fleet to subjugate the planet. But that's all we know, the Mon Cal shipyards are an obvious target that the First Order's probably already destroyed."

"Keep trying," Leia sighed, knowing that the planet was going to have a tough time aiding them with a First Order fleet over their world.

But then again, they had to make a nuisance of themselves to start stretching the First Order to be able to allow worlds like Mon Cala to rise up. So she looked back at her list intelligence reports, First Order ships had subjugated more worlds, every world from Commenor to Kashyyyk, seizing a vital line of movement and trade. The First Order just kept getting more and more of the galaxy under its thumb, the Core was under their control, soon the remaining holdouts in the Colonies and the southern Mid Rim would fall. The Resistance was running out of its buffer of chaos and power vacuum.

Location: Canto Bight, Planet Cantonica

Zay started to stir, her head was swimming, and she was very nauseous on top of a sore spot in her arm from what she remembered to have been a dart. That dart was the reason she realized she was in the current situation that she was in. She hadn't managed to change out of her dress, but she was barefoot now. However upon attempting to move Zay felt something around her ankles and wrists behind her back, keeping them bound together and she managed to get her bearings enough to realize she was laying on the bed on her side. She felt her lips completely sealed by a strip of spacer's tape pressed tightly against them. She wasn't blindfolded however, and was able to see that Poe was tied to the wooden desk chair across from her with his hands bound behind his back and his ankles tied together. He too was gagged, another strip of tape over his mouth.

Zay began struggling, pulling against the plastic zipties holding her arms behind her back, grunting with the effort as she began to chafe her bare skin. The immediate thought she got was that this was not the ideal position to be in, not again. As she struggled she saw that Poe was starting wake up, and she looked down past her feet and saw a pair of drunken passed-out Patrolians snoring loudly after they had seemingly feasted upon the pair's own room service, and then discovered the mini bar in its own little fridge within the ottoman/table in the main living room. This gave Zay the feeling that they had been given a golden opportunity to make good an escape and turn the tables.

She pulled against her restraints continuously as Poe's eyes fluttered open and he finally snapped fully awake as he discovered his predicament. Zay locked eyes with him, and motioned with her head to the two Patrolians that she could see. The Resistance pilot looked over his shoulder, craning his neck heavily as he got a good look from his heightened point of view and nodded back to her in response. This she took to mean he was up for attempting to free themselves and fight back. They'd tucked a pair of tiny hold-out blasters under the pillows on the bed, a bit stereotypical, but Zay didn't see evidence that they'd been tampered with so they might still be there. But they didn't do much good if she couldn't her hands unrestrained.

But Zay could tell that these weren't some cheap commercial ties, these were purpose-built for restraining people, and she decided to use some of her own flexibility to her advantage. Bending forward she pulled her legs up as close to her chest as she could and pushed her arms out away from the small of her back and with some discomfort thanks to her dress she got her wrists over her toes and pulled her arms out in front. From there she reached under the pillows and felt the handle of one of the blasters and pulled it out but found that it wasn't a blaster, it was a tiny folding knife. She looked to Poe with a confused expression, she'd never seen this get put there.

Poe smirked beneath his tape gag and shrugged his shoulders, as if saying, 'so what?' But Zay didn't have an issue with it and pulled the knife out and carefully maneuvered it so the small serrations were just against the restraining black plastic and quickly began sawing through it, careful to make sure that there was an eye on the passed-out intruders. As the sawing progressed she heard a knock on their door, and saw one of the Patrolians stir, groaning as the person on the other side of the door knocked again. This time Zay had finally snapped through the restraints and reached under the pillow and snatched one of their blasters and laid back down pretending to still be restrained and unconscious, Poe did likewise, although he just had to hang his head.

"What is it?" the second Patrolian growled as he sat up.

"No idea…stupid room service, what else did these people ask for…" the first bounty hunter grumbled as he got up, throwing on a bath robe that disguised his clothes and gear.

"Well if it's like the others might as well enjoy it until they come around," the second said as he walked into the bedroom, checking Poe and Zay with a quick scan, "Which should be soon. Go ahead and answer. They're not going anywhere."

He hit a button that darkened the glass door into the bedroom and Zay heard the door into the main room open up and then couldn't help but snap up at what happened next.

"Good evening, I'm Ivy, you massage therapist, as scheduled," the voice of Rey said aloud, albeit somewhat awkwardly.

"Oh, a massage," the gurgling voice of one of the Patrolians replied happily.

Poe looked over to Zay, shaking his head at that, telling her he hadn't ordered that, but Zay knew what was happening. Rey had found out and was here to rescue them. That meant Shriv wouldn't be far behind, and so would Dio, who was going to be appearing at their window any moment, and low and behold her prediction came true, the red eye of the droid appeared outside the floor-to-ceiling door/window and picked the electric lock into the room and floated over Zay quickly cut through her ankles' binds and then ripped off her tape as she heard Rey trying to bluff her way through the process of getting into the room and fully fooling the bounty hunters.

She cut Poe's restraints with Dio's help without a bit of trouble and she handed Poe the first blaster and reached under the pillows and found the second and waited by the door, listening for trouble. Poe removed his tape and nodded to Zay he was ready. However a smacking sound and a yelp from Rey got both of their attention.

"You're no massage therapist!" he yelled loudly, but was followed by an angered growl from Rey and then a powerful wooden _snap_ _._ And then a metallic _bang_ sounded out followed by another crashing noise of plates and trays.

Poe and Zay then burst out together and saw that Rey was standing over the two individuals wearing a stolen ID badge and a short tight white dress and white heels, fuming at the two with red on her cheeks. She had a heavily dented metal tray with bottles of lotion on the ground all around her and a wooden roller on the ground next to one of the unconscious Patrolians. The second was surrounded by the remnants of their feast having fallen into it after apparently getting launched up and over the couch by a particularly vicious blow from Rey.

"Rey?" Zay asked, looking at the girl's outfit with an odd glance, lowering her pistol.

"Men are…" Rey fumed, pointing at the two, but couldn't find words and just clenched her fist and looked at the two, placing her hands on her hips, "You know what this one did?"

"No but I can guess," Poe said as he looked Rey over, estimating he could guess with a degree of certainty judging by what they'd heard before Rey had apparently gone berserk. She cut an amazing figure in a dress that tight which left nothing to the imagination. The very basic make-up application had also helped her get in.

"He smacked me on my bum!" she snapped, "Complete pigs! All of them!"

"Well you came to save us, so yeah…sorry about that," Poe shrugged.

"Where'd you get that dress? I know I suggested you expand your wardrobe but…damn," Zay chuckled, standing back looking at Rey who scoffed in response.

"Shriv said it would get us in," Rey rolled her eyes.

"And it did didn't it?" the voice of said Duros said from outside the door where he wore a stolen butler's outfit with a small stolen casino bag with their gear in it.

"How'd he guess you weren't a masseuse?" Poe now asked as Shriv entered and closed the door.

Rey reached behind herself and pulled out her NN-14.

Poe and Zay looked to one another and back to Rey. The girl was wearing a dress that came only to just above her knees with slight cuts to allow movement and hugged her legs and torso with a generous but still classy low cut across her bosom. On the back there was a bowtie at the small of her back that covered the bottom of the zipper going up to her neck, signifying that it was an employee's outfit. This was where Rey had hidden her weapon. She also had her still-blonde hair pulled into a simple low ponytail.

"Well, despite that you definitely can pull that look off," Poe complimented her.

"That's what I said," Shriv replied, getting a roll of the eyes from Rey, "And we don't have time to wait around, we've got twenty minutes before the Resistance hits this place."

"What?!" Poe snapped.

"You're compromised, the General agreed, and sent our new forces on Serenno to do the mission."

"Serenno? There were Republic forces there still?"

"Over a thousand troops, officers, and some ship crew. They're sending two X-Wing squadrons and one A-Wing squadron plus a company of troops. Chewie's standing by with the Falcon to help exfil us and they'll lower one of their corvettes to the landing pads once the area's secure. Our job is to prevent the safes from going on lockdown," Shriv told them, "If they do it'll take a proton torpedo to crack 'em open. So if you don't mind we have to rob this place. You packed?"

"We can be in five," Poe replied quickly and ran into the bedroom and started shoving clothes into the big bag that they'd brought along for just this reason, emergency packing was hard when the bag was too small for disorganized stuff.

"Shriv wait, what about the boy and his friends? If they find out they helped us…we can't leave them and the boy's…I don't know, I can't explain it," Rey said, now remembering their insider assistance and a peculiar feeling Rey kept getting around the boy, who was the little threesome's leader.

"Don't worry, I sent them to the Falcon. I know what the Canto Bight justice system will do if they catch 'em so they're coming offworld with us."

"Rey, what do you mean there's something about the kid?" Poe asked curiously.

"Like I said, I'm not sure, but my instinct says he'll be safer with us," Rey shook her head.

"Okay, done, I'm calling room service to take our stuff to our ship," Zay said and quickly typed in the command and placed their three bags at the door, "Let's get rid of these two," she then suggested.

"Here," Shriv said, and grabbed one and lifted the being over his shoulder and then walked out of the balcony door and then simply dropped him over the rail.

"Shriv!" Rey yelled, amazed at such a callous thing from the normally common-sense Duros.

"Wait for it," Shriv piped up and then there was a splash, he'd dropped the being right into a pool and then Poe did the same, being sure to throw their blasters in after them, "Hotel security will arrest them in moments."

"Then let's go," Rey replied, straightening her outfit and re-hiding her blaster.

"After you, ladies," Shriv offered them a way out, and the two girls left after giving a mock-bow in return.

Poe and Shriv were left looking back at the two ladies' lithe forms as they left down the hall. Both nodded at the other, knowing that this was a unique mission indeed to get so tough a pair of Resistance fighters into dresses like those. The two followed behind quickly and Dio was quick to follow Shriv.

"Okay little guy, you know the plan, take care of their security center, we'll take care of the cash and guards," the droid gave an affirmative and zipped straight up as Poe walked up next to Zay, and she quickly grabbed his arm and Rey decided to push ahead so it wasn't looking like they were all together. A pair of hovering valet droids zipped on down the hall past them carrying their luggage on their built-in metal pallets and they saw that they were well and truly committed now.

"Shriv, how much longer?" Poe asked.

"Ten minutes, and Dio's almost there. Chewie's got the Falcon primed and ready, he'll strafe the police HQ and knock out their air vehicles before they can take off. Rey, you'll need to get us to the safe, use some of that Force stuff," Shriv informed them as they got to a balcony overlooking the veranda, where the casino proper actually began.

"We'll see what we can do about drawing off the guards," Poe replied.

"There's security doors there," Zay pointed, down a side hall, "We can use them to trap the hotel security staff in between two doors."

"No blood that way," Poe agreed, "How do you intend on doing that?"

"Give 'em something to chase, like blaster fire," Zay responded.

"Attention will be focused inside rather than outside, right where we need it," Shriv agreed, and looked at his wrist comm which had a countdown timer on it, "Okay…we have ten minutes, let's do it."

"Going," Rey responded and turned to the stairs along with Zay and Poe, Shriv stayed up high and walked around the balcony to get a better view.

Rey moved right towards a door marked with 'Employees Only' and pulled out her security card, stolen of course, and slipped it in, she held her breath nervously until it flashed green and the door opened and she strutted on in, following her memory of the schematics they'd studied for the better part of two days. It was a long hallway that ran past a pair of money counting rooms on the right where droids went about their business without worry and a couple biologic employees monitored transactions and acted as managers to deal with customer complaints at the exchange desk. Rey saw these through the glass and was astonished by the sheer numbers of credits passing through the rooms in credit chip form, thin gold and black cards the same size as one's business card. Rey was seeing more money being processed than she'd ever seen in her life. Entire locked metal boxes full of them were being shipped through the hall she was in by droids that didn't seem to take notice of her. She lifted her comm when she got good looks at the boxes, each was labeled, and some had numbers as high as fifty thousand painted on.

"Shriv, I'm in, there's probably millions of credits back here," she said in astonishment and followed one of the droids moving through the hall and into a back hall that she saw a single human guard standing at, and he saw her, and narrowed his eyes curiously when she ducked back slowly, "Found the depositing safe," but then the footsteps of the guard caught her attention, "And the guard sees me…"

"Play it cool," Shriv told her, "We can't trigger any alarms yet, but knock him out if you have to."

"Excuse me," the guard called out to her as he rounded the corner and Rey managed to hide the comm before he saw it, "I do believe you're in the wrong place miss."

"Oh," Rey replied, but then remembered her lesson from Leia about using her own beauty to her advantage and decided to give it a try rather than club him with her pistol, "Sorry, I'm new and…" she inhaled nervously, "Kinda lost…" Rey clasped her hands together and bounced a bit looking up at him through puppy dog eyes, "Can you help me, please? I don't wanna get fired, I really need this job."

"Uh…yeah sure," the guard stammered, "Don't worry about it, people make mistakes."

"Thank you so much," Rey replied, "I'm Ivy. A new massage therapist."

"A masseuse? What're you doing here in the casino?" the man asked, sensing something was up.

"I uh…heh, this may sound suspicious but I'm here for money, I thought this was where I could pick up my paycheck, I'm guessing I'm wrong?" Rey continued racking her brain for anything that could stall him.

"Yeah, yeah big time. That's behind the check-in desk, where you clock in and clock out, just ask the receptionist," the man pointed back where she'd come.

"Oh," Rey responded and feigned relief, and then repeated her puppy dog eyes back at the man, "You're-you're not gonna tell anyone I was in here are you?"

"Nah, it's fine, it's happened before," the guard replied with a nonchalant shrug.

"Thank you, in fact, while I'm here…" Rey said and changed her tone and lifted a hand and pressed a finger to the man's chest, "You will show me the vault."

Rey felt the change in the man, the mind trick had worked, and he straightened and his eyes went hollow, "I will show you the vault."

He turned and went to the door with Rey right behind him and typed in a code that Rey saw and she slowly pulled out her blaster and set it to stun behind his back. As he hit the last button and the thick sealed durasteel doors opened a voice called out from behind them.

"Guard! What're you doing?!"

Rey turned and lifted her weapon at a Toydarian manager who gasped at the sight of the weapon and she fired, sending a blue stun beam right into the flying alien who collapsed to the ground. But this definitely snapped the guard out of his force-induced stupor and saw the weapon and pulled his stun baton and took a swing at Rey as she came back around and fired at him. It knocked away the NN-14 and Rey had to dodge the next swipe at her body as the guard realized she'd duped him. He closed on her and raised the stun device and brought it right down at her. Rey caught the blow against his wrist with crossed arms and stopped it short. But the man shoved her back until she was up against the wall, and he began pushing hard with his other hand to get the stunner to touch her.

But as the stunner got closer Rey closed her eyes and opened her left hand and narrowed her eyes and leveled her breathing and with a charge of power she sent a force push out that launched the man into the wall with enough force to lodge him in the plaster and knock him out. Then a series of explosions shook the building from afar that Rey could just barely make out.

"They're here," came the voice from Shriv.

Location: Casino Entrance

Outside Poe and Zay walked into the side hall and Zay lifted a comm, "Dio, you have control," an affirmative beep answered her, "Alright get ready to lock down blast doors two and four on my signal. Ready?" she asked Poe as she drew her hold-out blaster from the holster on her thigh and Poe pulled another from his coat pocket.

"Always."

The two went to the end of the hall and pointed their blasters into the ceiling and fired multiple blue blue bolts into the metal ceiling that sent down dust and in the casino sent screams echoing from the room as its wealthy patrons ducked to the ground. The guards jumped to action, drawing their pistols and rushed to the sound of the blaster fire. They were trained with stun on, and Poe and Zay did likewise. The first man rushed headfirst into a pair of shots that leveled him instantly and three more fired back as they rushed up the stairs into the veranda with a half dozen more on their tails, their red suits making them easily seen and identified.

"There's a lot more of them than I thought!" Zay told Poe as they ducked into cover on opposite sides of the hallway they were in.

"No that's about right," Poe shrugged as a stun blast zipped by close enough to raise the hairs on his arm and so he swung around and fired one-handed catching another man as he tried rushing forward, collapsing onto the dark tilework, "Now?" he asked her after ducking into cover.

"Not yet…" Zay shook her head, getting a look at the nine plus men still standing and moving towards them, "Dio…now!"

The blast doors slammed shut between them, and then the doors shut between the guards and the casino. They could hear the banging on the doors of the gaggle of security guards and the two looked out to see orange flames rising from the police station, and the Millennium Falcon hovering over it, firing every so often as puny green bolts zipped back at the ship, hardly doing a thing. Then red glowing engines and the dots of starfighters got Poe's and Zay's attention. The ships roared by the casino at low level, shaking the building and Poe knew he wanted to see this. He blasted open the window in front of him, and he and Zay both climbed out in time to see that shuttles were coming in, and within them, troops that threw out fastropes that the soldiers within slid on down professionally and rapidly.

"Poe!" Shriv's voice called out from the left as the soldiers rushed inside past them.

"Shriv, how'd Rey do?" Poe asked as they got up next to them.

"She's got the vault completely open, and I've got the patrons emptying their pockets," Shriv said as patrons with turned out pockets empty of cash rushed by in a panic.

"What'd you make 'em do?" Zay asked.

"If they want out, empty their cash on the biggest table and scram," Shriv laughed, "It worked like a charm, if I do say so myself."

An officer from the attack force holding an EL-18 Blaster Rifle, a more modern version of their venerable EL-16's, rushed up to them, and saluted.

"Commander Dameron, Company A of the 245th Battalion reporting, all boots coming down," the captain said proudly through his helmet.

He wore a full uniform and tactical vest, and all their shuttles had Republic markings. As did the fighters that patrolled the skies, and so did the corvette hovering over the city, daring any police craft to challenge them. The troops moved with grace and precision, more than what Poe was expecting.

"Captain, we've got a lot of cash in there to move out, so let's get the job done quick before the First Order gets wind of what we're up to," Poe told them.

"With a hundred troops we'll get the job done sir, go ahead and get outta here, we've got this."

The man rushed past and started ordering his troops around, and the three soon saw Rey coming out as carts full of metal boxes of credit chips and credit coins came rolling out and the corvette began descending to take the cargo on. The Falcon also descended, and Rey and Shriv quickly grabbed their bag and ran aboard, knowing that it was best to get out as soon as possible. At the rate the troops were going they'd be done in mere minutes. Zay and Poe had to run to their ship, resting on the far end of the landing pad past the golden statue of a fathier just calling their name.

"Wanna see what the ship's really capable of?" Poe raised an eyebrow.

"Is that a date, honey?" Zay laughed, and the two ran past the troops now creating a constant line of carts and troops carrying sometimes a hundred grand in money aboard the corvette now lowering several of its side ramps, its three hundred meter long hull dwarfing all other craft around them.

The two ran aboard, and Poe got into the pilot's seat and activated his comm, "Any Republic craft this is Black Leader, taking off in a Nubian yacht from the casino landing pad."

"Black Leader, Hatchet Leader, we read you loud and clear, vector out at two-five-zero, hug the deck and climb and jump, how copy?" the X-Wing squadron commander called back confidently.

"Roger that Hatchet Leader, Black Leader taking off, vectoring at two-five-zero, low to the deck."

The yacht powered up, and Poe decided not to take it easy on their expensive craft and turned it loose, throttling up to full speed and the ship practically beamed away, about knocking people over who were too close. Poe had a massive grin on his face as he always did when flying at near-death speeds so close to the deck. The water of the ocean rippled and then fell away as they cleared the waterfall and Poe pulled the ship up and started climbing.

"Man I love this ship," Poe declared happily.

"Almost as much as winning?" Zay asked from her seat.

"Almost," Poe winked as they cleared Cantonica's atmosphere, "Okay…let's wait to make sure that the troops get what we came for and get out safely."

"Good call," Zay nodded and pulled up the scanners, and zeroed in on the city, and saw that the shuttles were on the ground, and the fighters were still making passes. The Falcon was also climbing out of the atmosphere, joining them.

It didn't take long at all, soon the shuttles were loading up and taking off, and the corvette lifted away, and the assembled formation began to climb and broke through the clouds. The two Resistance civilian ships watched as the military formation jumped away back to Serenno, where they'd come from, and then they too made the jump for home. Poe typed in the encryption for a call to Dantooine and was beaming at the prospect of sharing the news. Leia soon appeared on the console before them, a smile on her face.

"I'm assuming by your smile that you're alive and the mission is accomplished?" Leia asked.

"Yes ma'am, we've got a treasury again," Poe nodded back.

"Millions of credits from what Shriv just told me. But my bigger question is, are you two okay?" Leia further demanded.

"Yes general, we're okay," Zay replied, relieved that they were done.

"Good, I do have some bad news though. Finn and Rose and a fireteam of troops went to Rugosa to locate a viable place to set up headquarters. But there was an old trap set by Separatist droids, we lost four people, and Finn and Rose barely escaped with their lives."

Poe sighed, they'd lost people before, but this was war, "Well, at least those two made it."

"Yes, there is that. But they are on their way to check out another planet. We're waiting on word from them now. By the time you all get home we'll know if we'll be packing up again," Leia told them, "Home base out."

"Okay," Poe sighed, leaning back and smiling broadly, "How much?"

"How much? Oh-oh yeah…twenty million plus? I mean did you see the carts those guys were bringing out?"

"Some big ones, I'm betting thirty, thirty-five," Poe guessed and then got up, "I'm gonna tap into that booze cabinet."

He got up, and moved to the rear and opened the locked black wood cabinet. There were numerous bottles of some expensive alcohols and he picked a whiskey and grabbed a square glass cup. Zay walked in after him, and she grabbed one as well.

"You want some?" Poe asked, holding up the bottle.

"Got ice?"

"Oh, how could you?" Poe scoffed playfully.

"What? Whiskey on the rocks is classy."

"You don't water down something as fine as this Corellian Whiskey?"

"Just give me a shot would ya?" Zay rolled her eyes and held out the glass and Poe caved and poured a generous shot into the glass and snatched a few ice cubes from the tray underneath the cabinet.

"Well, cheers," Poe said proudly, "To the Resistance."

"To mission complete," Zay nodded and clinked the glasses together and then they both downed the glasses, she coughed a bit, not really prepared for the strength of the ninety-proof beverage.

"Not much for anything over fifty-proof," she replied honestly and she poured another glass, "But it's good."

"You sure?" Poe laughed.

"Yeah," Zay responded, sitting down and leaned back comfortably in the couch, "Poe, were you serious? Back on Cantonica?"

"About what?" Poe asked as he sipped at his cup.

"The other guests looking at me at that party?"

"Yeah, every word," Poe responded as he sat down next to her.

"It's not just that you were…a little clouded in the head? Too many at the party?"

"I only actually had one drink," Poe responded honestly, "And I'm not that lightweight."

"So if…I don't know…I kissed you you'd…mmm!" Zay yelped as Poe leaned in and kissed her, surprising her when his hand gently tilted her head up and he gently pressed his lips to hers. He held them together a moment then parted.

"Kiss you back?"

Zay simply smiled and pulled him back in and looped her arms around his neck and then Poe pushed back as their lips came together again and pushed her back onto her back on the couch.

"Should we really be doing this?" Zay asked breathlessly.

"We've got six hours to ourselves," Poe shrugged.

"Plenty of times."

Location: Planet Hrill

Finn stepped out of the shuttle into the early morning fog that enveloped the island that they were on. He stepped off the ramp and onto a rocky shore with large rounded stones that shifted slightly underfoot. Scans had revealed no life, no technology aside from a burnt-out village on the opposite side of the planet. The area was tropical, very humid, with white-barked trees having red leaves all around him. Fog wisps went everywhere, seeming to be generated from the massive trees themselves. Birds were chirping all around and Finn knew that this place was where they wanted to be.

"I think this is the place," Finn said aloud as he looked around, listening to the lapping of the waves behind him and the wildlife in the large island in front of them.

"A dense jungle to provide concealment, dense stone mountains there in the middle to dig into for hangars, and an isolated location off of the beaten track away from the First Order's bases of power," Rose agreed as she stepped out, "And it's beautiful."

"Let's look around," Finn suggested, and started walking towards the mangroves which had deep rocky channels that their roots dove down into, and Finn realize that this place had a tidal surge that leaked quite a ways into the area.

The two walked up past their mangrove cover and saw that there wasn't much of a dense underbrush like most jungles, instead red ferns covered the ground, every so often a smaller tree was sprouting up, trying to make a run for the light. But the fog was so thick that they couldn't get a good look forward through the jungle. There wasn't much to the jungle that they could see. A couple small hog-looking creatures scampered away, squealing as they ran from beneath the ferns. They disturbed a group of ground birds that flew straight up, their white and gray feathered bodies showing that they were quite plump.

"Well, there's some life around here," Finn shrugged.

"Oh come on we're not hunting them."

"Did you see how many there were? This place…it works."

"Incoming call from the General," Rose said as she got a call from the shuttle transmitted to her comm and answered.

"Good news, the Canto Bight mission was a success, the holonet's lighting up right now," Leia told the two.

"That's great, anyone hurt?"

"No, no casualties, and thirty-three million in credits has been seized. Tell me that you have some more news for me," Leia inquired.

"General, this place is perfect, there's not a ship anywhere near here and the terrain is ideal for building a new headquarters," Finn told her, "I think you can make the call to send our forces here."

"Very well, we'll be there shortly," Leia nodded, "In the meantime, go ahead and stay there, monitor the goings-on there. Find somewhere we can make a base facility, we need a place to dig into, with a plain large enough for ships to land, and is defensible. Rose will know what to look for."

"Yes general, see you in a few days."

Location: First Order Star Destroyer Finalizer, Orbit over Planet Mon Cala

"Supreme Leader," General Hux interrupted Kylo Ren's private thoughts, "We have received word of a Resistance attack on the casino on Canto Bight."

"Canto Bight?" Kylo asked without turning from the viewscreen looking down upon the blue water world and the scattered remains of their ruined and drifting shipyards.

"Yes Supreme Leader, many of our allies in the armaments industry are expressing grave concerns with our ability to protect them now that we have taken command of the galaxy," Hux responded.

"If they have the audacity to voice doubts of our abilities then they are treasonous, don't you agree General?" Kylo simply responded, turning his head slightly, "Take your pick of one to execute, then split his holdings to the rest as restitution for their losses. Our message will be clear enough."

"And to the rest of the galaxy, this strike cannot go unanswered," Hux responded adamantly, walking up to Kylo Ren's right side.

"How convenient it is that we have a rebellious world before us then. Order the dreadnoughts into position, bring their shields down and level their cities. The Mon Calamari will not be able to help their rebellious friends in this war," Kylo ordered coldly.

"Supreme Leader Mon Cala has a double-layered planetary shield powered from the surface by underwater and underground shield generators, the most advanced in the galaxy. It will take time, even with our forces' full firepower."

"Then there's not a moment to waste, commence firing!" Kylo ordered loudly to the bridge officers.

The fleet over the planet was powerful, dozens of Resurgent-Class Star Destroyers hung menacingly over the water world, TIE's zooming about in pairs on standard patrol. In a half ring over the planet a half dozen Mandator-IV Class Dreadnoughts awaited the order to open fire with their massive autocannons, prepared to accomplish their designed duty, crush planets from orbit. There was not much that the Mon Calamari or Quarren could do now. Their fleet lay in ruins, their shattered hulls spread out in orbit amongst fields of debris and crystalline fields of water with the bodies of their crews interspersed amongst the carnage. The ring of shipyards that encompassed the planet was completely gone, destroyed by the dreadnoughts that stood above them silently. The gnarled metal that was still in orbit was settling into a ring of debris that choked Mon Cala space, making it difficult for even starfighters to maneuver around the world.

This wasn't a worry for the First Order, in fact it was an objective of theirs. The Mon Cala shipyards were too important to leave untouched. So they'd launched a lightning fast assault, first with starfighters, pulverizing the Mon Calamari's defenses and drawing their attention inwards before the fleet arrived and opened fire from short range. Now they were doing so again, this time against the now active planetary shields. Red blobs of fire from the dreadnought autocannons rained down onto the shield, splashing against it, but for now the shield held, such was the power of Mon Calamari shielding that this process would take time.

"Tell me about the attack on Canto Bight."

"We have identified several perpetrators from the Resistance, the pilot, Poe Dameron, the daughter of the traitors of Inferno Squad, a Duros who assisted her and her mother in disabling one of our destroyers, and the girl from Jakku," Hux responded with tact, handing over a datapad with the identified individuals pulled from security cameras.

"Rey," Kylo said, softening his gaze as he looked at the girl, now having her hair dyed blonde and cut a bit shorter, "The Jedi. How'd they do it?"

"Dameron and Versio's daughter infiltrated the casino as guests, and from there they seemingly let in the girl and the Duros who gained access to the casino's main vault and lured away the guards. The YT-model freighter of theirs also assisted by destroying the local police station's landed aircraft. Then a hundred troops supported by shuttlecraft, a corvette, and three squadrons of fighters launched a full-scale assault," Hux explained, hiding his admiration for the skill and daring of such of a plan.

"I see," Kylo mumbled.

"Supreme Leader, the Resistance was left with only as many people as could fit on that lone freighter when we last saw them on Crait. Now they have gathered not just a few radicals, but regular Republic forces into their ranks. They must be dealt with immediately if we are to prevent full-scale war before we are fully established," Hux pleaded to his new sovereign.

"Full-scale war is already upon us General. And we will destroy them by starting here, continue the bombardment. Make our course for Coruscant."

 **Yes, the Mon Calamari are in trouble. This actually makes sense, I mean the Mon Calamari are almost single-handedly responsible for the success of the Rebellion in multiple battles and campaigns and were the industrial heart of the Alliance fleet. The First Order would quite obviously make a mission of annihilating the Mon Calamari, or at least their industrial capacity, which is what really matters.**

 **So yeah, I'm actually having a lot of fun right now writing this while I'm going back and forth with a couple of proof-readers that I'm working with for Soldiers of the Republic. As those of you who don't already know I'm in an Arma 3 Realism Unit, and we take our stuff pretty seriously, many of the members are military themselves and I'm bouncing a lot of stuff off of a couple of them to make that story as good as I can. It'll be a couple more days until I'm able to give that story an update, so I'm hitting the iron of this story while its hot, so to speak. So yeah, another chapter coming soon.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: Moving to a new home, and growing pains start to arise.**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Location: Resistance Headquarters, Planet Hrill

"General, the Rhen Var garrison is arriving," Lieutenant Ko Connix called out from under the communications tent, a temporary setup that was a fair distance from the loud construction zone where their company of engineers from Serenno was going to work tunneling out a base for them from the gray granite using tunneling machines and duracrete sprayers brought from their now gutted shell of a homebase back on the opposite side of the galaxy.

"Very good," Leia nodded and she knew that the Resistance that they had available was assembled, "How're we looking so far?" she asked her now second-in-command, General Cal Garul, the commander of the base on Serenno.

"Progressing smoothly ma'am," the man responded, his red eyes looking down at the schematics the engineering company were working from, "We've got the main hangar just about hollowed out and we're getting duracrete sprayed on as we go. It won't take long before we'll be able to start flight operations, maybe a day or two."

"And when will we be able to get our personnel under the mountain?" Leia asked.

"I'll have to ask the good captain, maybe a week before all personnel will be in a barracks and command and control can be established. The engineers have got at least a month before they can have a break."

"We'll have to have our troops lend a hand to make sure we don't overload those men," Leia ordered.

"Already done, most of our men are helping to get the fighters camouflaged and the digger debris processing for more duracrete base, those that aren't doing that are processing timber for fortifications," the general nodded.

At this point one of the Vakbeor cargo frigates from Rhen Var landed at the clearing. Escorting it down was a pair of A-Wings from its home base. Immediately out of the ship came a line of troops led by a colonel and a major, both from Republic Intelligence. Leia was surprised by this, their presence at Rhen Var hadn't been told to her by Temmin.

"Republic Intelligence?" Leia asked, pointing at the officers who came walking over to them.

"Spooks, they have a habit of surviving without anyone having a clue about it," General Garul responded.

"General Organa, General Garul," the colonel said politely, saluting to the two of them respectfully, "Apologies for the lack of communication about our presence but we couldn't risk our presence being revealed by snooping First Order intercepts."

"And you are?" Garul asked.

"Colonel Frey Juun, Republic Intelligence," the human replied.

"Major Gliis Sann, same," the Bothan reported respectfully.

"What were you doing on Rhen Var gentlemen?" Leia asked the two as they were allowed in.

"Trying to survive. We witnessed the cataclysm of Hosnian Prime, so we returned to our post on Rhen Var, and tried to contact our comrades in Intelligence, but we couldn't reach anyone, so we've been tracking Republic forces that have gone underground."

"Any luck?" Leia asked, curious about what they'd found out.

"There's some naval units hiding out in the far outer rim and wild space. Army units are rallying as best they can, stealing, buying, bartering their way into hiding spots around the outer rim as they can, but they're harder to find, not all of our garrisons can get word out and are just stuck," Colonel Juun responded, shaking his head.

"Any of note?" Konnix asked.

"A couple, a naval task force operating based near Bespin is still fighting. And another larger one we believe is gathering near Ryloth," Major Sann responded immediately.

"How large are these fleets?" Poe asked as he arrived, "Sorry to interrupt, Commander Poe Dameron."

"We know," both intelligence officers responded.

"To answer your question we've identified at least twenty ships ranging from corvettes to a Dreadnought Mk. III at Bespin and there might be some capital ships at Ryloth, no idea how many," Major Sann responded, "They're definitely on the First Order's radar."

"There's actual cruisers out there? Actual battleships…" Poe whispered to himself, acting as though he'd just gotten hit in the face by a stick.

"We'll need to find them and rally them, those kinds of assets cannot be wasted," Leia told them all, "We're too few now to not pursue every avenue for more troops and more ships."

"I can go," Poe volunteered.

"I need you to organize our squadrons here Commander," Leia ordered, their people were still new, and they had to get organized now that they had so many.

"We're as organized we'll get at the moment ma'am, I've got seven X-Wing squadrons and three A-Wing squadrons organized into three wings, I'm keeping Black Squadron independent for now," Poe responded quickly, excited at the prospect getting out in his own X-Wing and finding more allies.

"General, that is quite a lot of ships, we can start striking out once we're ready for flight operations," the Colonel suggested, gesturing to the scattered camouflaged fighters behind them underneath the shade of the red-leaved trees.

"I would like to have our base fully operational before we start launching strikes and raids. We've seen what happens when we go into a campaign half-cocked Colonel, it cost us last time," Leia retorted.

"Well we have a detachment of engineers and quite a lot of equipment to help that task, it should be coming down in the next cargo frigate," the same man responded.

"Excellent, well Commander, you think you're up for a field trip?" Leia responded.

"Where to?" Poe chirped immediately, excited for the coming mission.

"You'll take Rey to Ryloth, Zay and Shriv will go to Bespin. Take your pick from Black Squadron to go with you. You will need to locate and convince those fleets and bring them back here," Leia ordered, "I want you to first get some rest. None of your pilots have had any real rest in quite some time. So you'll leave tomorrow morning. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am, I'll let 'em know," Poe acknowledged, and walked out of the tent without a salute, a bit of an oddity to the assembled command staff from the new Republic garrison additions.

The Resistance now had an actual brass, two Generals including Leia, a pair of Colonels, three Commanders, multiple majors, more than a dozen captains, and enough lieutenants to manage their much larger forces. Troops, crew, pilots, and engineers swarmed about getting jobs of all kinds done as quickly as they could. Leia could see the makings of a new Rebellion before her, and from what she'd just learned they had a chance of growing further still.

"So General Organa," Colonel Juun asked as he straightened his uniform properly and smoothed his goatee, "What is our plan going forward? I don't think I've been briefed in."

"We're establishing our base here, digging into the mountain for cover and concealment. Once that's done hopefully Commander Dameron will have returned with a sizeable fleet that we will use to strike First Order bases and patrols in hit and run tactics, rallying the galaxy to our side as we did before," Leia explained, "Hopefully, depending on what our intelligence can gather, we will also try to make contact with Mon Cala, and gain the support of those vital shipyards."

"Unfortunately you may find that task difficult General," the intelligence major sighed.

"Mon Cala was attacked five days ago, the planet's shipyards are destroyed and the majority of their defense fleet along with them. The First Order is more than likely pounding away at Mon Cala's planetary shields at this very moment," Colonel Juun reported dejectedly, but was more than willing to share this.

"Have you told anyone about this information Colonel Juun?" Leia asked.

"No ma'am, it wasn't confirmed, and I didn't want to squash morale, for what it was back on Rhen Var," the man whispered.

"See what you can do about confirming it please. We need to know."

Location: Resistance Headquarters, Pilots' Bivouacs, Planet Hrill

The large tent that was set up underneath a pair of large white-bark red-leaf trees was hidden well enough, and had room for the members of Black Squadron that had survived this far. Poe had, assembled in this tent, Captains Temmin Wexley and his wife Kare Kun, two very influential leaders within the group of starfighter pilots assembled here, along with Lieutenants Nien Nunb, the veteran, Niv Lek, Jessika Pava, Cova Knell, and C'ai Threnalli. The eight of them were all they had left of the original Resistance starfighter corps. At the moment they weren't fighting the First Order, they were fighting the elements, trying to seal slight tears in their very old tent fabric as the rain poured in.

"How're we supposed to last for a week out here? It's bloody ridiculous, I could get better sleep in my cockpit!" Niv groaned as he wiped the rain out of his eyes as he held two parts of the fabric together that just refused to seal as Jessika applied another attempted patch of sealant along the tears.

"Well you're more than welcome to, after you patch that," Poe said as he laid back onto his cot, thinking of what awaited them out in the territory of those rogue Republic fleets.

"And count yourself lucky Niv, a lot of the infantry are sleeping on the ground, under tarps strung under the Falcon and around the shuttles," Kare reminded the man as she, C'ai, Nien Nunb, and Temmin played Sabaac on the stump they'd snagged and put on their side of the tent.

"Speaking of sleeping around…" Jessika teased, looking at Poe with a sly grin, "I hear the Commander here and Zay Meeko are an item nowadays."

"Where'd you hear that?" Poe instantly asked, feeling the flare of heat in his temples at his little romance being discovered.

"C'mon Commander, the way you two look at one another…it's pretty obvious," Kare replied, "It's the same way genius here looks at me," she pointed at Temmin who shrugged.

"It's true sir, you two aren't as low-key as you think," Temmin replied with a smirk.

"Well that's good to know, get those leaks patched and get some shut-eye, we're doing briefing and pre-flight tomorrow at 0600, then we'll take-off immediately after that," Poe said as he set an alarm and then threw a towel over his face to hopefully get some sleep.

He was still on Dantooine time, and his internal clock was saying it was late afternoon, hardly time for sleep, but he was still tired, Black Squadron had spent quite a lot of effort on taking a shift with the engineers on mixing duracrete and then setting up camouflage for their fighters and making their own tent. Then he himself had to map out a route for the squadron to move towards Ryloth and then Bespin, this took time because he wanted to evade the main hyperspace routes and but he'd managed to accomplish the task. Hopefully Black Squadron would be able to accomplish this coming task, a more important one by far.

Location: First Order Star Destroyer _Carnage_ , Orbit over the Planet Mon Gazza

Fire and debris enveloped the bridge of the _Carnage_ , a once proud First Order star destroyer, the bodies of her bridge crew littered the floor, and there was no sign of a turnaround in the battle that the ship found itself losing. The captain was long-dead, the XO and the auxiliary bridge were unable to control the ship with the extensive damage that the ship had sustained and the gunnery officer was probably dead in the infirmary for all that the last surviving officer on the bridge knew. She knew it was a lost cause to stay with the ship and hope to turn the tide. But the training that instilled a fight-to-the-death mentality was winning out.

"Status," the injured lieutenant commander coughed out, holding her side.

"Weapons systems don't answer ma'am, hull breaches on all decks, comms are down and only number one engine answers to the helm," the ensign who was their ship's second-in-command responded, limping around to different control stations, shoving a body off of the last one, "The reactor's been compromised, it'll go critical in less than five minutes, the ship's lost commander."

"How'd they do it…how?" the young officer panted, leaning against the sparking and damaged control panel at the windscreen which was cracked and about to be breached.

She looked up, and saw the equally-sized enemy ship looming over them, and then saw the blinking of red turbolaser fire get loose aiming right at them. It proved to be the last thing anyone on the bridge ever saw. Around the Resurgent-Class Star Destroyer _Carnage_ were its two sisterships, the _Ferocity_ and the _Sovereign_ , both drifting powerless and dying, pieces of the once-powerful ships tearing themselves away as explosion wrecked both ships. But the _Carnage_ died a horrifically public death when its reactor detonated and tore the ship in two, eliminating whatever chance anyone left aboard had for survival. But it wasn't as though their opponents were in a merciful mood anyways.

As escape pods launched they were pounced upon by vengeful awaiting starfighters, by the end of the slaughter only the fleet that had jumped the First Order task force remained alive in orbit. But they didn't feel the need to stick around, as rapidly as the fleet appeared it left, pouring into hyperspace and disappearing. The carnage that they had wrought upon their foes was something that the galaxy hadn't seen since the destruction of Starkiller Base and the hyperspace ramming of the _Supremacy_.

Dropping out of hyperspace behind a moon near this poverty-stricken world came eleven T-70 X-Wings of the Resistance's Black Squadron. The X-Wings immediately detected the distress signals emanating from the First Order warships that had gotten jumped in high orbit. Seven of the X-Wings were painted with black markings over their gray hulls. Poe's X-Wing was as he always had it, with black and orange markings. Rey's was gray and blue, and Zay and Shriv had theirs marked with black and markings on their gray hulls. All eleven fighters now had a mystery on their hands.

"Looks like it was a heck of a battle," Rey said as she looked out at the fragmented hulls of the destroyed First Order warships.

"A one-sided battle," Shriv noted over the comms, "I'm not seeing any ships that aren't First Order."

"And no escape pods either," Temmin called out, "Can anyone else confirm that?"

"Bloody hell he's right, Commander I thought those star destroyers had a crew of over eighty thousand, some should've been able to get out."

"Something funny's goin' on here," Poe informed them, deciding to search the debris, "Black Squadron, get in there see if you can find anything on your scanners up close. We might be able to find something important."

"Roger that Black Leader," Kare acknowledged and the squadron proceeded forward, spreading out into five two-ship duos of X-Wings.

Poe found Rey on his wing, her white and blue helmet visible on her head with her own droid, BB-3C, painted blue and white and awaiting something to do as the two of them headed towards the wreckage of the star destroyer that had gotten torn in half. There were pieces of hull and ship innards everywhere, along with bodies, thousands of them drifting around the wreckage as they made their way into the field. Poe checked his comms and switched to a secondary channel with Rey so that he didn't clog up the squadron-wide channel.

"Watch your speed here," Poe advised as they got in close and started weaving around debris floating around them, some still glowing with heat, "One good hit from a piece of debris like that reactor plate and your fighter's had it."

"Roger," Rey acknowledged and steered carefully around the piece Poe had pointed out, staying nearby the more experienced pilot and his distinctive black and orange X-Wing.

"So," Poe started calmly as they flew about, looking at their scanners for anything of interest, "Heard you slept in your fighter's cockpit."

"Oh, yeah I did," Rey responded with a shrug, "Didn't seem right to have someone else sleep on the ground when I had my own fighter with a chair I could sleep in. Plus the rainstorm was cool to look at on the canopy."

"Yeah I've never been able to sleep in the cockpit," Poe shook his head, "Well actually that's not technically true, I can in hyperspace, but that's it."

"Is this channel secure? Just the two of us?" Rey asked as they got to the hangar, which looked like it had been wrecked by a series of explosions that tore and bent the hull plating away, pausing as they looked at it for signs of what could have done this.

"Yeah, why?" Poe asked distractedly, bringing his X-Wing in close to the hangar opening and shining his front beam lights into the space, and was able to pick out TIE Fighter panels in the racks within the hangar and pieces of troop transports on the deck or floating about. If what he was seeing was correct this ship hadn't launched fighters before its opponent had rained hell into the hangar, destroying them in their cradles.

"I heard about you and Zay, that you two…did it," Rey replied sheepishly.

Poe was snapped out of his analysis and cocked his head slightly before tapping the controls and cleanly spun the T-70 around to shine his bright lights at Rey's own ship, hovering about fighter-length to his left.

"How'd you find out about that?" Poe asked suspiciously, he had a feeling that his squadron was using their big mouths a bit too much.

"Zay told me," Rey said in reply, shielding her eyes from the lights hitting her light gray and blue fighter.

"She told you?" Poe deadpanned, not quite sure if he was to believe her, "Zay did?"

"Yes, well sort of," Rey started to explain, "Leia's given me some textbooks, I've been reading one on how to read people, body language, facial expressions, that sort of thing. Zay fits the bill for recently being in…a relationship, according to the book at least. Now would you stop shining those things in my face?" she growled.

Poe turned the X-Wing back, and returned to the task at hand.

"Looks like the First Order got taken by surprise, these TIE racks are full, none of them got deployed, at least on this side of the hull," Poe told her, "To be able to do this kind of damage though…this isn't fighter-based damage, the armor itself is blown away, look at the point blasts, only turbolasers can do that, I think I'm right in saying Republic ships did this."

"Think they're nearby?" Rey asked as she examined the damage for herself.

"Maybe, but we're told they're waging a guerilla campaign like we did, hit-and-run," Poe shrugged, knowing that this damage was very recent.

"Uh…they might be closer than we both expected," Rey called out, pointing out something on her scanners, four craft entering the system from hyperspace, "Small craft entering the system."

"Black Squadron go dark now!" Poe ordered, shutting off his lights and waved to Rey to duck into the large destroyed hangar.

The two X-Wings swiftly ducked into the hangar, out of sight and facing out. They could see the glowing of red engines approaching through the heavily crowded wreckage field. The Star Destroyer continued to spin and they lost sight of the craft approaching them. But Poe had an idea of what they were. He waved to Rey and then crossed his hands to form an X and then pointed out towards the approaching craft, the hand-signal for X-Wings. Rey lifted her palms then shook her head and motioned out towards the approaching craft, as if asking why they weren't out there greeting them. Poe shook his head, knowing that X-Wings weren't only used by the good guys nowadays, it was best not to reveal themselves before they were completely sure who they were.

The four X-Wings appeared in front of them, slowly moving around the field of wreckage, and Rey watched them scanning the field and she tried to get a look at their markings to see if she or Poe could identify them.

"Red and gray with the phoenix," Poe called out, "Republic Navy for sure."

"Let's go say hello then," Rey replied, relieved a great deal and powered up.

"Rey no wait, we're not broadcasting IFF's!" Poe cried out as Rey's engines powered to life and revealed their position to the scanning X-Wings.

"What's an IFF?" Rey asked, still slightly unaware of some of the military procedure knowledge needed in this situation.

"In a nutshell it means that it tells them who we are, without it they won't know not to shoot until they are close, but they might not wait that long before firing," Poe warned as all four T-70 X-Wings came about and accelerated towards the two of them and locked their S-Foils in attack position.

"Uh oh," Rey realized and punched activated her deflector shields and dove back into the heart of the debris field.

Red laser fire lanced towards the two of them, and with weapons fire came the rest of the X-Wings the Resistance had deployed out here. The four X-Wings that had arrived and opened fire saw the new signals and then started to turn away as Poe broke free in pursuit of them.

"Attention Republic fighters!" he called out on an open frequency, "This is Commander Poe Dameron of the Resistance, hold fire, I say again hold fire! We're friendlies."

As Poe pursued the four fighters another eight X-Wings marked up the same way jumped into the system right in front of them and readied for combat, but they were extremely close, as in mere meters in front of them. Poe rolled immediately, banking up and coming practically cockpit-to-cockpit with the fighter that was in front of him. Both pilots looked up and saw one another from five feet away, able to pick out the details on one another's faces and helmets and could see each other's orange flight suits and white survival vests. Then the Republic fighters began to break away, but kept their distance with S-Foils locked.

"Attention Resistance fighters, this is Sabre Leader, you are not broadcasting proper IFF signals, verify identity or you will be fired-upon," the female squadron leader of the fighters said as Black Squadron arrayed themselves to face off with the Republic ships.

"Activating IFF now," Poe replied, typing in the command and BB-8 assisted and started broadcasting, the green light triggering on his control panel, "IFF broadcasting."

"Roger that, authenticated, welcome back to the Republic Fleet, sending coordinates for hyperspace jump," Sabre Leader replied, "The admiral wants to speak with you."

"Well so do we," Poe said and saw the coordinates, "BB-8 plug 'em in and let's go. Sabre Leader we've received coordinates and are ready for jump."

"Black Leader, Jump immediately, we'll be right behind you," the woman said in response.

"Black Squadron mark coordinates and jump," Poe ordered.

With a slight delay the X-Wings made their hyperspace jumps, pouring into hyperspace and were followed by the strangers' squadron. Poe sat back and looked down at his timer, he saw it was only a twenty-minute jump, meaning that it was just out of long-range sensor range of their former destination. He was able to get a transmission sent out to the Resistance base at Hrill before they dropped out of hyperspace at the coordinates, and were confronted with a powerful tractor beam. In fact all of their fighters were caught and to both sides Poe looked and saw that two _Free_ _Virgillia_ -Class Corvettes had their guns turned and trained on his fighters.

"Hey what is this?" Poe demanded through the comms as the Republic fighters zoomed past him.

He tried to call out, but no one answered, his input readouts showed that they were getting nothing, he was being jammed. Poe then looked forward and saw a sight for sore eyes, a pair of MC85 Star Cruiser escorted by ten _Vakbeor_ -Class Cargo Frigates, five more _Free Virgillia_ -Class Corvettes, three Nebulon-C Escort Frigates, a pair of smaller Nebulon-D Scout Frigates, and lastly a trio of MC80D Mon Calamari Cruisers. Tucked in amongst them were three _Baleen_ -Class Heavy Freighters and a pair of tankers. The freighters didn't have military markings at all and were not stock, instead their massive racks of cargo had two long hangars on the top and bottom, so they were probably stolen/confiscated for some other use.

The only two classes of ships that were in any way modern were the Nebulon-D and the MC80D. The scout frigate was an exclusively anti-piracy and anti-smuggling vessel, barely two hundred meters long with only four docking collars on its thin midship spine and a simplified bow section more wholly armored compared to the older Nebulon-series frigates and six powerful engines in its stern engine section. For armament it only had eight point-defense laser cannons, three turbolasers facing forward and one single ion cannon under the bridge.

The one thousand two hundred meter-long MC80D was easily more powerful than its original configuration. It was born out of a budget crunch that saw older Liberty-type MC80's, the most numerous of the class, refitted with eleven modern sublight engines each more powerful than their nine originals and the large broad wings of the _Liberty_ -type cruisers were trimmed and newer slimmer thinner ones were tipped by powerful forward facing ion cannons, giving a much-needed boost of speed. The hull was still perforated with its complement of precision targeting turbolasers, point-defense laser cannons, and new deflector shield generators but all were within retracting bulbs on the surface. The hangar was enlarged going forward to add another squadron and four more shuttles. To the enlarged hangars' stern, the two batteries of powerful three-gun ventral broadside ion cannons remaining in place acting as the ship's most powerful weapons. Added to that was a more modern system of automation reducing its class's substantial crew of more than five thousand to an average of a thousand depending upon its mission. These ships were a sight for sore eyes for the capital ship-deprived Resistance, a single MC80D could turn the tide of a battle.

" _Twenty-seven ships_ ," Poe thought to himself as his ship was brought in past the picket ships, " _Three hundred plus in fighters. Now this is the fleet we need, so long as they believe we are who we say we are_."

The fighters were brought towards the center MC85, and Poe was first inside, being dragged into the gaping fighter hangar bay where he saw numerous X-Wings and A-Wings parked about but saw a contingent of blue and black clothed Republic Marines wearing their white helmets and black visors. They weren't the old Alderaan-styled uniforms and helmets of the past, they just retained the coloration for tradition's-sake. The helmets and uniforms were the same as those of the regular troops Poe and the others had on their side now, they were just colored differently. The helmets' fronts were black, and the rest was white, and their black tactical vests and blue shirts were all modern. And they were just as hostile and imposing as Poe remembered, because as soon as he landed he had a Republic Marine's EL-18 jabbing against the canopy as the sergeant was yelling for him to get out of the cockpit.

"Shut off the craft and exit the cockpit! NOW!" the Marine yelled forcefully.

Poe held up his hands and BB-8 shut down the X-Wing and he opened the canopy and the Marine practically threw him from it as the hangar filled with more yelling and ordering around as the rest of the squadron was likewise harassed. After removing his helmet Poe was shoved down the staircase shoved against his X-Wing and his pistol was ripped away and then the moment that he touched the ship's deck he was hit in the back of the knee by a boot and shoved to the ground.

"Spread your hands and legs, now!" Poe was ordered, but it didn't make a difference because someone kicked his legs apart and a single female Marine knelt down and started to very forcefully pat him down, removing his toolkit on his leg and his code cylinders on his arm.

"Look we're on the same side!" Poe yelled back, looking at the two humans pointing their rifles at him.

"Shutup," the female Marine snapped at him, reaching under his white harness and searched around.

Poe just growled in annoyance, the Republic Fleet had always been strict on security, and the Marines were hardasses, even during peacetime. So he was seeing what war and near-annihilation had done to their already grumpy dispositions. He also noted something new, these Marines had black balaclavas over their faces, so he was only seeing their eyes.

"Clear!" the female Marine called out, immediately returning to her feet.

"Just tell me what this is all about?" Poe cried out as he was yanked up by the back of his flight gear, "Jeez! Hey, watch it!"

"Hands on your head! Move it!" the sergeant who'd yanked him out of the cockpit ordered as another Marine shoved him forward.

Poe then noted Rey's fighter was just landing and that he was being forced to a growing group of Resistance pilots all searched and stripped of their weapons and tools. Their BB units were all still in their fighters, restraining bolts having been placed on all of them the moment that their pilots had left the cockpits. All had their hands on their heads, and were looking to Poe in confusion, none were hurt, seeing as they hadn't resisted. But Rey wasn't so docile when confronted by a Marine corporal jabbing his weapon against the glass of her cockpit.

"Oh don't do it…" Poe groaned.

As if on command the canopy was opened and the Marine was aiming down into the cockpit and trying to pull Rey from the pilot's seat. However there was a problem. This last starfighter was now the subject of interest as a fight started with Rey being unconvinced that the Marine with a blaster aimed at her and his face covered was on their side, and when he tried to bat her helmet with the stock of his rifle it was grabbed and a tug of war began with Rey being confused and wanting to stay in the cockpit and the Marine, now with help from another man, wanting her out. To everyone's surprise the two men were sent flying straight back, one of them crashing into another X-Wing's fuselage with a loud bang. Rey was up and out of the cockpit now, holding her NN-14 ready to do battle, and several Marines lifted their weapons and aimed at her.

"Rey!" Poe called out and quickly moved towards her, "Stop! Put the blaster down!"

"When I know they're not with the First Order!" Rey replied, breathing heavily, teeth bared at the Marines surrounding her.

"Of _that_ ," a loud male voice called out from the back of the hangar, "I can assure you. I am Rear Admiral Dominis Jaye."

From the back of the hangar came a uniformed Republic Navy Rear Admiral. He was a Kage, with smooth gray skin, white hair tied in a short wolftail behind his head. The most striking feature anyone noticed were his eye's practically glowing yellow irises. He was handsome, built strongly but athletically, typical for a Kage male. He had a tan and blue uniform on and the insignia for Admiral on his chest. He was strangely not wearing a cap, like most Republic officers did. But his eyes and face were drawn into a face of a man who was completely stern. His voice and posture reeked of authority, and he demanded respect.

"Who you are is another question," he told the Resistance squadron and then looked Rey dead in the eye, "Now, drop, your, weapon."

Rey challenged the man with her eyes, looking him solidly in the eyes without wavering. Part of her knew this man was more than likely on their side, but the actions she'd experienced from the Marines around her put doubt to that in her mind. But this lock of the eyes was mere distraction from a clearly clever adversary. Because a BB-unit painted in Republic colors lowered itself from the ceiling behind Rey and an arc projector deployed and shocked the young woman who tensed and then collapsed from the shock. Rey's own droid most definitely did not appreciate that, and so BB-3C deployed rapidly from its hole in the X-Wing when the other BB-unit dropped to the wing and the two droids smashed into one another in a flurry of angry beeping and crashing. A pair of Marines rushed over to break up the fight and out of sight got the two separated and BB-3C was attached to a restraining bolt and disabled.

"Now," the Admiral stepped forward and stood before Poe, "We'll see who you all really are."

"Look, she just sent those two Marines flying twenty feet through the air," Poe protested, "We're Black Squadron and Inferno Squad from the Resistance, and that's Rey, the last Jedi."

The Kage looked over at the unconscious girl brought over to them and dropped onto her back after being searched. He then looked to the group of Marines.

"Is this true?"

"Yes sir, she…launched two of my men without touching them," the Marine officer tentatively responded.

"Hmm…" the Kage nodded to himself.

He turned around from the Resistance pilots and lifted his arm and then raised his hand, keeping it open. This was a signal the well-trained Marines knew well. Poe heard them charge their weapons and tighten them to their shoulders. Poe assumed that a clenched fist meant to execute them, and anything else meant that he believed him. The hand stayed there a moment, each and every Resistance member staring intently at the single appendage with all their might hoping for a positive gesture.

"Welcome back to the Republic Fleet Commander Dameron," the Kage calmly said, lowering his hand and then clenched his fist and the Marines squeezed their triggers, sending stun blasts into the entirety of Black Squadron and they all collapsed, "Search their ships, find their base."

Location: Resistance Headquarters, Planet Hrill

"Construction is progressing quite rapidly General Organa," Captain Xwue, their engineering officer, told Leia as the two stood in the center of the nearly structurally complete main hangar in all its cavernous glory as drillers went to work boring through the granite to craft three-high stacked starfighter cubbies along the walls, "The captain believes he'll be able to have flight operations going by tomorrow or the next day."

"Where'd you get the idea for the cubbies in the walls?" Leia asked curiously as they walked in, passing piles of rubble being shoveled out along with equipment and personnel working dubiously.

"I saw the same technique used on Naboo, but I adjusted it here so our fighters will have added protection from battle damage to the facility itself," the man replied as they reached a project that was also progressing smoothly, "And here we're using the presses from the facility on Rhen Var to power these elevators."

He pointed down, showing Leia how the engineers had come up with a clever way to mitigate their workload by cutting a shaft down into the rock to start the lower level of their maintenance hangar and then bore through to the second and third locations for additional elevator shafts that would go to the three separate parts of the hangar, one in the middle in back of the hangar across from the hangar entrance, and two more on the sides in protected storage areas for the fighters themselves. The engineers had then installed the elevator press shafts in along the sides and attached them to their baseplates which were bolted to the natural granite. These granite platforms were then cut out in the proper shape with a 1/16 inch of clearance on all sides and the elevators were complete. The lower hangar rested beneath ten feet of solid rock with reinforced durasteel bars laid on the walls and ceilings and then sprayed with duracrete to insure nothing fell from the natural carved ceilings.

At the moment Leia was watching cylindrical fuel pods being gingerly lowered down into the maintenance hangar where a pumping station and fuel lines were being laid to be able to service all the craft from several outlet pumps and attached fuel lines being bolted to the walls alongside electric and water lines. The shuttles were slated for storage in the far rear of the hangar through an arching blast door that was being installed later. It reminded Leia of Echo Base, back on Hoth, except here it was humid and warm, and it was a different army.

"And what of base power? Are the power generators we have gonna cut it Captain?" Leia asked as he showed into the first of many halls into the base.

"Yes ma'am, they should do just fine. But if we get a shield generator…not a chance. The dozen generators brought from Serenno are Grade C, only about the size of a speeder. It takes Grade A or B power generators to power a shield that will be of any sort of use."

"I know, we had big ones back on Hoth, the one powering our shield was too exposed," Leia shook her head, she knew that the Rebellion got too lax with its generator being left in the open the way it had been, that was not a mistake she intended on making here, "If we could get a Grade A or B generator could you bring it into the base itself, underground?"

"A Grade B, probably, they're only classed to be as big as…say an AT-AT's main hull, a Grade A is a different monster, it will be like trying to hide a corvette underground. If I had ten tons of duracrete mix, two industrial earth movers, and six weeks, yeah it's possible. But not recommended ma'am. You would lose the protection of the mountain and the work site alone would alert any orbital observation of our presence until plant-life could reestablish itself."

"Your suggestion then Captain?"

"Well General, Grade B's we can partially disassemble and move under the mountain and reassemble for protection. It'll take some engineering and lots of work but I can carve out a power station complex under the north wing of the hangar to be large enough to house two or three of them. And it would have to be more than one by the way General, alone they're not powerful enough for their cyclic RPM's to sync with the needs of even a theater shield generator's refreshing rate, with two we can sync them to provide a constant power flow enough for a shield plus the added bonus of an unlimited power supply for day to day operations. A third just gives added strength, depending on the make and model of both devices."

"But we don't have any of those right now do we?" Leia sighed, bringing up the obvious limitation.

"No ma'am we do not."

"Then let's focus on getting our people out of those tents and get a roof over our heads," Leia said as they got to the new command center, which was just completely filled with dust as men holding digger tools carved away the rock, "What're you planning on for our command center captain?"

"We've got the command center planned to be fully equipped, the training facility at Serenno and the outpost at Rhen Var were gutted for just this purpose. There's enough comms gear to reach across the galaxy with all the encryption gear that we could scrounge."

"That'll do, we'll need that when we get more ships on our side," Leia nodded, "Speaking of which, we'll need to get our long-range comms set up in here sooner rather than later."

"Once the duracrete dries I'll have that as first to be done and I can have a crew start on the comms dishes," the engineering officer responded.

"Good, hopefully we can have some more help arriving, assuming that our people made some beneficial contact with those naval task forces," Leia responded with a smirk.

"General, we've got ships coming out of hyperspace," her comm piped up, this time in a much more pleasant tone than such a declaration warranted, "They're Republic ships!"

"How many?" Leia asked.

"Twenty-seven, including five cruisers," the man responded.

"Any sign of Black Squadron?" Leia asked, noting that Poe hadn't contacted them.

"None, we're receiving a comm from the flagship. Shall I patch it through to you?"

"Yes please," Leia ordered, knowing that they were probably a naval admiral who would need to be melded into their command staff, "This is General Organa, who am I speaking with?"

"You are speaking with Rear Admiral Dominis Jaye. And be advised you are no longer commanding officer of these forces. I am."

"I beg your pardon?" Leia asked immediately.

"General! Shuttles are landing!" a man called out.

"Shuttles?" Leia said.

"As I said," the voice on the other end replied, "I am in command now."

Leia narrowed her eyes and walked out to the hangar and saw a crowd of her own troops responding with weapons drawn as shuttles landed and deployed blue-uniformed Marines jumped from the shuttles and aimed at her people.

"General, they're Republic, but," a man cried out, not sure what to do.

Leia stopped him, and walked past her people in time to see a uniformed Admiral looking down at her people from the lead shuttle. A Kage, Leia knew that the man was a warrior, the Kage usually were. Not only that she saw there was going to be violence if something wasn't done, and she herself was very persuasive, and they were on the same side, so it made sense for Leia to deescalate the situation.

"Stand down," Leia ordered her troops, "Return to your work."

"General…" Captain Xwue protested.

"Go, I'll handle this," Leia silenced him and walked towards the Admiral, "So, what is it you intend on doing here? Usurping the Resistance?"

"It's not the Resistance anymore, it's the Republic Defense Forces, and I am in command. You will either swear loyalty or be placed under arrest," Admiral Jaye responded.

"No," Leia shook her head calmly.

"Then you are under arrest, Princess."

 **And so the next phase of the story begins. Inter-Resistance conflict, a natural progression of growth of forces. If anyone has suggestions let me know, this is quite a complicated story arc going forward. Also, I have a theory, the Rebellion's ships (The ones of the original trilogy), were either phased out or upgraded like the MC80 Liberty Type was in this story, should I do that with ships like the CR90's or Nebulon-B's?**

 **Next Chapter Preview: A coup d'tat in the Resistance, what comes next?**


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Location: Republic Cruiser Redemption, Orbit over Hrill

Rey woke with a start but she found herself in a cell with a pair of large and powerful cuffs on her wrists in front of her as she laid in a cell by herself. The door in front of her was coated in glass with thick durasteel bars providing real strength. The girl was still in her flight suit, nothing but the orange suit and her black boots, her weapons, gear, and even whatever rations she may have had were gone. Rey's hair was a mess, and she was incredibly sore. The cell she was in was just one of many along a row. She looked through the glass-encased bars and got to her feet and saw a Marine with their EL-18 slung over their shoulder, casually walking from cell to cell, looking inside at her.

"Your friend's awake," he said over his shoulder.

"Hey!" Rey yelled, pounding on the door's glass, "Hey! What the hell?! Why are you doing this?"

The man turned around in response, and smirked back at her.

"You're in the way doll," the man replied.

Rey decided to give him a bit of a shove, and through her hands out at him. But a sudden electric shock coursed through her arms and then into her body. All of it came from the cuffs. Rey stumbled back into a crouch on a knee. This was something Rey hadn't seen coming.

"Those cuffs we got from an First Order supply ship, they're force-inhibitors. Any use of the Force gives you a rather sudden and violent shock. Don't try it again if you like to be conscious, it'll only get worse as you keep trying."

Rey lashed out again, this time the shock put her on her butt, leaving her gasping for breath. The Marine laughed and just walked on, and Rey heard a tap from the wall. There was a grate on top of the wall that allowed air to filter amongst the cells.

"Rey," a voice from the next cell called over, it was Shriv, "You okay?"

"Never better," Rey groaned, leaning up against the wall.

"That guy betrayed us, he's taken over the Resistance, he arrested Leia."

"No!" Rey cried out, scrambling up to the wall, "He can't!"

"He can, and he kinda did, he's not the ally that we had thought we'd find."

"He's a warlord, that's what he is," Rey growled, and started pacing, "He's a bloody tyrant!"

To lash out she through her cuffs against the wall, making a loud clang that gave her a nasty shock that made her yell in pain and collapse completely. Then she looked down at her cuffs and saw the state of them, they had a pair of lights that were only just flickering right now. Blinking away the stars floating in her vision she could make out Shriv and now Kare calling out to her.

"Rey, hey you okay?" they called out.

"They've got force-inhibiting binders on me," Rey managed to get out as she got back onto her knees, "They shock me whenever I try to mess with them."

"So maybe you shouldn't…say…bang them against a wall?" Shriv replied.

"Rey, force-cuffs have very sensitive sensors in them, you bang them around and bite the bullet you could damage them enough to use the force," Kare whispered out to her, "Temmin once told me that."

"Hey pipe down!" a guard nearby yelled at them.

"Just keep working on them Rey," Shriv whispered through the vent, "We're not in binders like you are, we'll get out of here soon enough."

"Easy for you to say," Rey growled as she rolled her eyes, knowing that this process was going to be quite painful, but if it got her and the others free it would most certainly be worth it.

Location: Resistance Base, Planet Hrill

Lieutenant Connix was being very quiet, walking around the base's island with a geographic mapping tool was just a cover. The cover was simple and easy to overlook, there were many more officers on base now, and many times more enlisted personnel. The young officer knew that she'd be able to slip away and complete her self-imposed task before too long, at least in time to be able to get back to her actual assignment of supply inventory, an assignment that most of the original Resistance members were relegated to so they'd stay out of the way and be under constant surveillance.

As she walked Connix made sure to check behind her to be certain that no one was following. Occasionally she would stop and do quick scans, logging the pertinent information for use in case she had to explain her absence. She'd dabbled in military engineering so she had enough know-how to be able to talk her way out of interrogation should she be forced to explain herself. But having the actual data would go a long way was well. The majority of the officers above her were more concentrated on results, not so much the politics of Resistance and Republic.

Connix stopped at a clearing, one that was familiar to her, and she dropped her large satchel off of her shoulder, and slid it over underneath a red-leaved batch of bushes. A hand shot out and snatched it from beneath it, and she nodded to the person she'd dropped the satchel for, and continued on her way. Underneath the bushes in a hollow carved there by a collapsed tree trunk Finn pulled open the bag and took inventory of what he had now, a canteen, a few meal bars, and now he had a blaster rifle, a helmet, and a vest as well as an identification card. Connix hadn't let him down, she'd gotten him everything that he'd needed, and now he had to get to his rendezvous with the squad they'd recruited back on Chandrila who were pretty much exiled to the north end of the island to build an outpost inside a cave, there he'd at least be safe, those people weren't the former military members of the majority of the personnel, they were the staff members of the Mothma household who'd drawn the ire of their new commanders after the coup and were pretty much sent away to stay out of the way of the real work.

Finn had seen that group, they were hardly even able to be called soldier material, much less dangerous. More than likely they'd been seen the same way by the Republic military officers now searching for him. He would just have to walk the few hundred meters and then ascend the steep hill to the cave they were burrowing into and he'd be somewhat secure amongst the company of the other outcasts. So that was what he was going to do.

He got the gear on, and stood up, keeping a clear view around him and then got to the well-worn path that would take him to the cave and the squad. He was there quickly, only seeing a pair of engineers working on drilling down into a thump. It must've been a tunnel entrance, but Finn didn't stick around to find out. The man just walked along, and then got to the steep trail and started ascending. The cave came into sight after he heard the sounds of work, the sounds of axes cutting wood and shovels digging into the ground. He saw the squad hard at work, one of their number on watch at the cliff edge overlooking the forest canopy that the cave was just above. He saw Finn coming, and yelled out.

"Who goes there?!" the amateur soldier asked.

"It's me," Finn whispered, "Keep your voice down."

"Sorry Finn," the man nodded, "Just uh…didn't know who you were."

"That's the point," Finn replied, walking up and looking around, "What're you guys doing? You heard anything?"

"Nah, nothing, none of us have any contact in the base aside from an officer who occasionally shows up to be sure we're still here."

"Nute right?" Finn asked as he looked back out over the foggy rainforest towards their main base, which even through the fog they could just make out the mountain.

"Yeah, hey you remembered my name?" the young former groundskeeper smiled.

"Of course," Finn responded, "So, what's the project?" he motioned over his shoulder.

"We're building it up, the cave entrance. We were told to make it home, so we're doing what we can with it. We'll have a wall up, cover it up with dried mud and grass and heat it until it's brick-like and have a pillbox in it. We've got sleeping bags, and we're working on better quarters, but we've only got what we can make. No generator, barely any tools, we're just left here to wither on the vine," the man grumbled, sourly.

"Maybe we can work that to our advantage?" Finn asked, a plan forming in his head, "There's got to be more than just this squad that's drawn the ire of the Admiral and his supporters. We had over eight hundred people with us when he showed up, there's gotta be more that aren't happy with this."

"Finn, you're talking about challenging that guy and his Marines? Are you crazy?"

"Not challenging, not directly. Stir resentment, yeah, undermine his subordinates, definitely, challenge, not yet. Not until he does something that makes the perceived consequences of challenging him seem better than existing under his command," Finn whispered, knowing that there was no way that they could replicate his coup.

"And just what would he have to do to make people believe that?"

"Get him to crack down, hard, and turn it into the kind of theater that paints it as the cruelty of a warlord rather than the actions of an officer."

"That seems like the same plan as getting bit by a rancor so you can pull his teeth," another of the resistance members piped in, "Are you crazy? If we do that then what'll happen to us?"

"I didn't say it was _us_ he was going to crack down on," Finn replied with a smirk under his helmet.

Location: Republic Cruiser Redemption

Rey was almost there, the constant banging every so often had succeeded in weakening the cuffs' internal power supply to the point that she would be able to fight through and force the cuffs off. Their inhibiting effects would no longer keep her locked into the cell once that happened. She waited to listen for the guards to be far off and she raised her cuffs over her head and then smashed them against the floor. Instead of a single massive shock it gave a sputter, not even a shock, and then she felt the cuffs loosen.

Rey's eyes widened as she looked at them, and sure enough they were rattling, the lights were off, and she decided to give it a try. Envisioning the cuffs' internal locking pin she focused, no shock came as it started twisting and then it popped and the cuffs fell off her wrists and hit the deck. Immediately that drew a response, the sounds of boots hitting the metal deck started coming towards her, and Rey lifted both hands as if she were in the lower pushup position, and waited, focusing on the large door in front of her. She'd channeled a lot of pent up emotion and knew what she wanted to do. The Marines came sprinting over with blaster rifles raised and Rey threw her hands forward, and both men smashed violently into the wall and slatted door of the cell across from her.

Neither man remained conscious, and Rey lifted her hand again, and waved it to the side, and once more the physical object in front of her rattled in attempted compliance. She tried again, lifting her hand and waving it to the side the door screeched a bit as it came slightly open, the mechanics fighting her Force-assisted attempts to escape.

"Third time's the charm," Rey mumbled to herself and did the same thing, focusing even harder this time and the door came a third of the way open, just enough for her to shimmy through. She did so, and was free. Rey collected one of the Marines' weapons and fished around for his key card, and found it. Going cell to cell she opened the doors, and sure enough ten other Resistance pilots walked out, and all knew that their jailbreak was happening.

"Nice job," Poe said as he reached for the last weapon available, the second Marines' pistol, but Zay snatched it before him.

"Sorry Poe, I think I might know-hey!" Zay smirked but Shriv snatched it.

"And who taught you?"

Zay pouted a bit as Shriv led the squadron of pilots out towards the exit, and Rey used the key card of the men she'd knocked out to open the door. It was just in time to see two more Marines running in, but completely unaware of their proximity. Because of that Shriv shot both men square in the chest with the stun setting on the pistol he now wielded. The other members of the team now scavenged more weapons, and Poe found the arms locker and wedged it open and started passing out blaster pistols, the modern version of his trusty Glie-44.

"Okay, we won't have long before they lock down the ship and sweep us back into those cells, let's get to our fighters and get back to Hrill," Poe ordered the team as he snatched a comm that was tuned into the shipboard security frequency.

"How far are we?" Rey asked.

"If we're still on the same ship, and I'm pretty certain we are," Temmin started, and pulled up the ship's schematic on the console in the center of the guard room, "We're quite some distance away."

"So what?" Poe asked, "We just need to be smart and get from here to there without being noted as escapees. This tub will have pilots all over the place, it shouldn't be that hard for most of us to blend in."

"Key word there, most of us," Shriv then pointed at he and Zay, who weren't in standard uniforms like Poe and the others were.

"Well, how about them?" Rey asked, pointing at the two unconscious Marines, "They're here aren't they?"

"Okay, I hate to do it but I'll do it," Shriv accepted the decision, holding his up to relent.

"Let's get those other two tied up and quiet," one of their other comrades suggested.

It didn't take long before they were ready to get going, and two by two they left to avoid attention. The ship wasn't that crowded, many crew were too busy to know who they were and Poe was able to keep a low profile. Rey stayed just behind him along with Zay and Shriv, with the other pilots staying near, but not too near to draw attention. An officer walking towards reading from a data tablet got Poe's attention, and he nudged Rey.

"Salute when I salute, no hello's, just step aside a bit, salute, and keep walking," Poe whispered, getting a nod and a nervous sigh from Rey.

The officer got into range for a salute, and Poe snapped it off, quick and clean, no fuss and no trouble. In response the man just returned the salute lazily and kept walking without so much as a word or a glance in their direction. They all followed the same pattern until they reached the hangar. But when they did a shocking sight caught them, Marines.

"Oh crap," Poe whispered, seeing the two in front of them, but they couldn't stop.

"What do we do?" Zay asked.

"I don't know, but we can't leave if they close the shields," Poe said.

"Someone has to stay behind, keep the shield doors open," one of the others sighed.

"We'll stay, distract them, and then you and the others make a break for the fighters," Temmin suggested, "Rey get in front," he said, putting the Marine-disguised Rey in front of them, "And sorry about this."

He then drew Rey's blaster pistol and smacked her upside the helmet with it. She stumbled to the side as the other pilots rushed past her as Shriv ducked down next to her and Poe and Zay were likewise assaulted, all them wearing the Marine uniform and helmet to make them impossible. Their comrades rushed past them, and Temmin declared out loud and for all to hear.

"For the Resistance!"

It was cheesy, loud, and did the trick. The other Marines around the hangar door raised their blasters and ran at them and were almost immediately downed by stun shots fired from the stolen blasters. They rushed past Poe, Rey, Shriv, and Zay, all of them now more than a little shaken by the sudden attack. Rey was more than a little annoyed.

"That wasn't very nice…" she grumbled unhappily, sitting up and scrambling to her feet as the sounds of fighting got to their ears.

"No, but it gave us a chance, quick," Shriv ushered them all to their feet and the four ran into the hangar to see a scene of chaos, pilots and crew were rushing about with more than a few on the deck, stunned.

"Get to your fighters, now," Poe yelled, running towards the row of fighters he recognized as theirs.

"Poe!" Rey yelled, seeing a few BB units on the side of the hangar, theirs, BB-8 in particular was easily visible.

"Buddy!" the squadron commander smiled, and ran over, seeing a restraining bolt attached to his droid friend, he kicked it off with a couple kicks of his boot and then BB-8 jumped to life, spinning about, beeping madly as he deployed his electronic self-defense weapon.

Rey did likewise, kicking off her own droid's restraining bolt and the little droid beeped to life and Rey knew it was time to get going.

"Rey!" Zay yelled, and fired at a squad of Marines rushing inside the hangar with her pistol.

"Poe, get outta here, we'll cover you!" Shriv urged them, and Poe grabbed Rey and pulled her towards the fighters through a crisscross of stun blasts.

The two weren't shot at initially, but then when they got to their fighters the two were seen and shot at. Rey helped her little astromech into its place in the T-70 X-Wing and started climbing up the ladder. But when she was about to jump down into the cockpit a lancing burning pain ripped through her left hip from the door where a Marine fired at her and missed his intended target of her ship to disable it.

"Rey!" she heard Poe yell out in concern.

The young Jedi collapsed into her cockpit, gasping in pain as she hit the buttons to start the ship as fast as she could. Her hands shook as the X-Wing powered up and then slid up into her seat and tried lifting off. The left wing of X-Wing dipped awkwardly as she tried to get control. But the pain was searing, the smell of her cauterized wound filled her cockpit.

"Rey," she heard over her cockpit's comm, "Rey tell your droid to plot a jump to my coordinates, now!"

"Okay…" she said, blinking away the white flitting into her vision as she worked her way into control and started to push out through the exit to the hangar behind Poe. But she couldn't do it. Something else was driving her to her actions. Rey began manually typing in a set of coordinates, she didn't think, she didn't examine it, her hands just did what she felt had to be done. It was as if a different set of hands were working with Rey just watching as the X-Wing accelerated out into open space. Rey lost consciousness as she pushed the hyperspace lever forward.

Poe watched Rey, but didn't see her acknowledgement of her having copied her hyperspace jump solution. BB-8 was more than a little insistent that she hadn't done so. But then as he watched the other Resistance fighter shot away into hyperspace. Without much hesitation Poe shot into hyperspace himself breaking free of the large MC85 Cruiser's tractor beam lock. They were gone, but they weren't going to the same place.

 **Not my finest work, but I just needed to get this done so I can progress the plot. I have plenty of ideas for how this will progress, and have lots of excitement for the next chapters. I hope I'll be able to get this going again now that I have time again.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: The drama on Hrill begins, and the escapees reach their new destinations.**


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Location: Resistance Headquarters, Planet Hrill

"Easy, easy!" the engineer guiding down the empty fuel cell called out, watching the stilts meeting the globular cell.

"Almost there," Lieutenant Connix said, watching them from afar, "After this one they move the fuel inside and then they'll be able to start combat sorties."

"I know," Finn replied, "We have to stop it."

"How?" Connix demanded, "There's already plenty of people who don't like the new commanders and his officers, but how will you get them to the point of resistance?"

"Watch this," Finn winked, and pulled his goggles over his face.

The disguised man casually walked by, and with everyone's attention focused on the fuel cell being lowered Finn moved towards the lower levels, where the fuel pumps were already installed well away from the fuel bay. This was the key to making certain that the usurpers wouldn't be able to begin using the facility to launch raids against the First Order, and thereby insure their place as the new leaders of the Resistance.

"Okay," Finn whispered to himself, walking down the metal stairs, "Best place to hit a pump is at the joints, break the seal…"

He looked down at the several pumps and the multitude of pipes snaking across the floor, built up off the ground on duracrete slabs and bolted on. There wasn't anything in them yet, so he decided to covertly go for a glass viewport. Finn could see one not too far away, and walked in past a bunch of engineers who were moving around, loudly screwing in bolts into new sections of pipes. There were plenty of personnel about, and he dropped his blaster behind a pallet of pipe sections and lifted a toolbox into both hands to look as though he belonged. It didn't take too long before he was at a pump, a large speeder-sized contraption painted yellow that was bolted into the floor with three rows of fuel lines going to and from.

Kneeling down Finn took out the toolbox and looked inside and covertly withdrew a plasmablade. It was meant for precision cutting, but the vibrations would cause more damage, and he did so when he held the handle and pushed it up into the bottom of the pump housing, and then quickly hit the button, and a sudden spike of plasma cut into the housing and Finn could feel the heat and reached over and did it again. The pump was rendered inoperable, and it was done so it was obvious, lest a major accident occur that took lives. This sabotage wouldn't even be detected without a thorough inspection, which Finn wasn't certain had already been done. All this pump would do was suck in air or spill hydraulic fluid.

Finn simply stood up and returned from whence he came. The damage was done, but he decided he wasn't done. With a quick jab he punched another hole into a pipe as he walked by, leaving a small glowing red hole on the pipe against the wall by his blaster and walked away. The engineers had no clue he'd done this, and he got away with it, for now. Lieutenant Connix was watching for him to return and saw him walking.

"Well?" she asked.

"They'll have some more repairs to do, and suspicion will be running high."

"The engineers will definitely get an earful from an unhappy Admiral," she nodded, "I hope you're right."

"From what I've seen in First Order officers, which this guy reminds me of…the hammer will come down. And those who dislike him will then start to hate him."

"You sure hate is the right call?"

"Meet you at the cave," Finn just responded and turned and walked towards the stairs upwards out of the hangar.

Location: Forest Moon of Endor

The T-70 emerged from hyperspace and Rey was still unconscious thanks to the blaster wound in her hip. Her BB unit was all-too-aware and took over control of the ship and made a bee-line towards the forested moon in front of them. Rey began to start to come to as the X-Wing began getting buffeted by the strong winds.

But it wasn't the wind and the jostling that woke her, a voice, speaking as if it were next to her.

"Rey, hang on," the voice said, and she recognized the voice speaking.

"Luke…" she whispered as the starfighter began to start its landing cycle.

"Arrived you have young one," a new voice stated, and the feeling of comfort washed over her, she didn't recognize this voice, it was spoken as if by an old yet wise individual, not Luke.

"We are with you Rey," an old voice added, and this one sounded more like a prim and proper gentleman.

"I don't understand…who…where?" she mumbled to herself as once more she was jostled around when her fighter landed.

The craft's canopy opened and she knew that she wanted out, and like an uncoordinated blob Rey pulled herself up and out and fell back and landed hard onto a wet mossy ground. Rey yelled in pain as she hit, pressing her hand to her still-bleeding wound. She didn't take notice of the tree cover over her head and the sound of the forest around her. The sound of a horn caught her attention, it was unlike anything she'd ever heard before, and the sounds of whooping and chattering made her look around. Holding a hand to her hip Rey sat up, and saw a pair of gray and brown-furred creatures standing there with spears and leather hoods and bones and teeth strung on necklaces as well as a few feathers on them. They stalked towards her, chittering at her, and Rey finally realized who they were.

"Ewoks…no wait! I'm a Jedi!" she called out, and the two Ewoks looked at each other and chattered back and forth a moment. Rey knew she had to figure a better method of communication.

"Here," she said, and slid to a dirt patch and drew the Rebellion symbol.

The two Ewoks carefully walked to where they could see it, and a similar and recognizable noise of recognition emanated from their mouths. She knew that they weren't going to be roasting her alive at least. The gray-furred Ewok walked over, and cocked his head at her wounded side.

"Help me, please," Rey asked hopefully.

The gray one took out a horn with a cork plug in it he unplugged it and gently lifted her hand off and then poured out a yellow honey-like liquid. Rey watched it drip down and then hit her wound, then it was like the lights went white and then went out. She dropped to the ground from the mixture hitting the open wound. The brown Ewok snapped at the gray one and the two argued about the chosen course of action. After the argument Rey's droid dropped down and looked at Rey as the two argued. The gray Ewok patted the little rolling droid on the head in a show greeting and allowed it to stand next to them.

Then the brown one blew curled ram's horn and more Ewoks started to arrive. Soon dozens were there, and they began to assemble a gurney and lifted Rey on it with a homemade bandage. Then, the assembly took the wounded girl towards their village. A medicine man was waiting in their healing house up in the trees, and with a few ingenious systems of pulleys the wooden stretcher and patient were lifted straight up, and the healing began.

Location: Orbit over Planet Delphon 7

Poe's X-Wing dropped out of hyperspace over the sparsely populated world, knowing that the First Order wasn't here yet, but he didn't want to make the risk of going to a more major world like Bespin. He was looking for a fleet of Republic ships, a fleet that potentially had modern Dreadnought Mk. III Cruisers in it. Arriving Poe saw a pair of cargo ships, small medium freighters just hanging out.

But one thing that he didn't see was Rey's X-Wing. She'd escaped with him, but she wasn't here which was what highly concerned Poe. There wasn't even a sign of her.

"BB, I need a full spectrum scan, every nook and cranny, anywhere she may have come out of hyperspace," Poe ordered his trusted droid partner.

BB-8 commenced the scan, and as he did so Poe noticed that the two medium freighters, Barloz-Class, started up their engines and began accelerating towards him. Narrowing his eyes Poe noted the two ships were painted with red stripes on them and had more than double the usual armament as what was factory for the design.

"Buddy, do those ships look odd to you?"

BB-8 gave him a confirmation, those ships weren't just freighters, they were converted warships. Poe accelerated, and sick of not being able to fight decided it was time to do something rather than just run from what he assumed were just local pirates.

"Open a channel buddy," Poe tersely ordered, and the beep came, acknowledging the order, "Attention unknown vessels, this is Commander Poe Dameron of the Republic Fleet, state your intentions immediately or I will open fire."

The two ships kept their course, but didn't respond. Poe tapped the button to open his S-Foils to attack position. Then the two ships' power began to drop on his scanners, they were powering down their weapons.

"Wait please! Don't shoot!" a young excited voice called out, "We're on the same side Commander Dameron."

"Identify yourself," Poe ordered the two ships.

"This is Captain Stiill of the Red Blizzard, of Scarlet Squadron."

"Scarlet Squadron?"

"We're uh…hold on sir, we'll show you," the young voice responded and within a few seconds Poe's scanners lit up, ships started dropping out of hyperspace.

The ships Poe saw were old, every one of them. Three old derelict GR75's modified with three five laser turrets and a single boxy hull for crew quarters instead of modular cargo containers. Two CR90's upgraded with heavier armor and weapons, including two large fixed turbolasers mounted under the bridge and two outboard engine pods mounting four smaller sublight engines each arranged two by two on four support rods. There was also a single CR90 with a carrier modification so it held a squadron of starfighters. And scattered in the formation were four YZ-775 Medium Transports, five YZ-900 Freighters, and three VCX-825 Escort Freighters. The largest ship that appeared in this batch was an EF76 Nebulon-B Escort Frigate in the lead of the formation. Scattered with them were RZ-1 A-Wings, T-65 X-Wings, and a few BTL-A4 Y-Wings, all of them uniquely painted and showing signs of age.

"Oh," Poe smirked, seeing the motely and antiquated collection gathering before him.

"We're Rebels Commander. Like you," the same kid responded happily, seeing that the fleet was assembled and more than a few fighters were zooming in next to Poe, and in each cockpit Poe saw he was looking at young eager faces, many wearing old-school flight helmets in their old starfighters. The vibe that Poe got from them was that he was being swarmed by fans judging by how the fighters gathering in a crowd around his ship.

"What do you think sir?" a random voice asked.

"Well, I think it's a start."

Then, to top off the assembly the largest ship there finally arrived, an MC75 Mon Calamari Cruiser, by the looks of it, it was barely even able to make it there. Carbon scoring from decades of near-neglect covered the hull and in some places hull plating was even missing. Unfortunately, this state of maintenance was actually the same as most of the ships in this motely assortment of craft. Cleaning time had probably last occurred for them back when those ships were new, which for many was decades. Poe piloted towards

"Commander Dameron," a voice that Poe recognized as coming from a Mon Cala said over the comms, "You may land aboard the Goliath sir."

"Roger that, making approach," Poe said but noted that quite a few fighters weren't exactly making it easy by crowding in, "Hey guys, clear the pattern please."

A chorus of apologies rang out as the different fighters peeled away. Three of the X-Wings very nearly smashed into one another as they crossed paths. One of them showed extraordinary skill as they dodged several other fighters, rolling and pitching away and with extreme reflexes banked around a slow Y-Wing more gently steering away. Poe just shook his head and chuckled as he made his way into the sizeable and chaotic hangar deck of the MC75 in front of him. This was, like all Mon Calamari ships, unique, having hangar that was entered from the rear of the ship in a bulging stern section behind the long ventral fin. When he landed he saw all manner of personnel and droids emerging and rushing to the hangar, most of them extraordinarily young, some military-aged, and none wearing true uniforms. Nothing appeared standard here.

Poe's impression wasn't helped when he saw the state the deck, much and filth was everywhere. Crates and barrels and munitions were laying about against the wall or around the handful of fighters and old Imperial shuttles on deck. Up close it was apparent that maintenance was most definitely not a priority around here. In fact it was so bad Poe had to say something.

"You guys don't do much maintenance around here do you?" he asked as he opened his canopy and could smell the need to change air filters hit his nostrils.

More than a few of the crew meekly looked around, knowing how right he was.

"We uh…we're kinda new to this whole thing sir," a young female Theelin pilot wearing a blue flight suit and white chest rig responded, "Commander Kee, I'm in charge of our pilots."

"Well Commander," Poe sighed, stepping out and started stepping down the ladder and dropped to the deck, "A bunch of old raggedy-ass ships and fighters is better than none. I can work with that. Who's in command here?"

"The old man sir," Commander Kee responded, "Come on, I'll take you."

Poe looked around as he followed the young pilot and saw the awe and joy that many in the crowd obviously felt seeing that such a Resistance hero was there before them. It was actually remarkably refreshing compared to the stern and military welcome that they'd received aboard the previous cruiser he'd just left. But most welcome were better than that one to be perfectly honest. The interior of the cruiser he was being led into wasn't all that bad compared to the hangar, he was seeing more in the way cleaning and maintenance being performed in the corridors and he also noticed that were very, very few in the way of crew around the ship. In fact on the way to the lift he only saw a dozen people.

"How many people do you have here?" Poe asked as the two entered the lift.

"About a fifteen hundred in our force, probably less though," the girl shrugged, then it seemed she'd finally worked up the courage to say something else as the lift went down and she turned to face him with a bright smile and big eyes, "Commander sir can…I have your autograph?"

"Autograph?" Poe stammered, this being a first for him, "Uh…sure…"

"Here," Kee offered, holding out her helmet and a pen, an old and modified A-Wing helmet.

Poe quickly scribbled on a 'Good hunting, Poe Dameron' onto her turquoise helmet and handed it back, and smirked as he saw the big bright smile that lit up her face.

"I'm never washing this ever again…" she sighed happily, almost hugging the new treasured possession.

"Well better wash the inside because…well y'know maintenance."

"Yeah, sorry about our state, we're not fully organized and there's not very many of us to do everything. The Admiral will tell you the whole story."

"Alright, let's hear it," Poe said as the lift stuttered to a stop.

"Not again…" the girl groaned unhappily and pulled up a comm, "Hey engineering, we've uh…yeah we've gotten stuck in the lift again."

A series of angry beeping came back on the comm, clearly from a droid.

"Yes, just get us going again, we've Commander Poe Dameron, the Poe Dameron, on here. It's embarrassing!" the girl griped back.

The lift began moving again, audibly screeching for a few seconds before it smoothed out. The lift then stopped at its proper stopping point and then the door opened, and Poe was confronted with a marginally acceptable state for the bridge. Greeting Poe was a Mon Cala, this time a male in a Republic Navy uniform with no legs. He floated in a hovering chair, with a cybernetic eye enhancement as he looked at the two.

"Admiral Ortugeb Ru, Republic Navy," the Mon Cala stated to Poe, "Welcome aboard Commander."

"Pleasure sir, if I may, how'd all this happen?" Poe asked.

"Well, that's a bit of a story. I was second-in-command of squadron of Republic ships that's stationed near Endor. When the Republic fell we knew that a new Rebellion would need to be made, so my boss sent me to the shipbreaking yard at Eriadu to scrape up whatever we could and we've building up and training this and two other forces ever since," the Mon Cala responded, hovering over to a map, showing the positions of four separate fleets marked with Republic markings.

"How big are they?" Poe asked.

"Oh…we've got an MC80 Liberty Type, an MC80A, and four Nebulon-B's, plus a more than a dozen CR90 and CR92 corvettes, three QuasarFire Carriers, and maybe twenty GR75's? Plus dozens of those up-armed freighters and transports and lots of fighters."

"Damn!" Poe responded in awe, "How'd you accomplish all of this?"

"We were given more time than other Republic forces. Plus, we are in a fairly populous region of space. Lots of recruits and lots of ships to pick up," Commander Kee replied.

"And we still have our primary force, a regular Republic Fleet of modern cruisers, fighters, and escort ships."

"What do you have?" Poe asked.

"A four Dreadnought Mk. III's, two Yavin-Class Carriers, and about twenty frigates and corvettes."

"Jeez!" Poe's eyes widened, realizing he'd hit paydirt, "Well Admiral, I think it's time I tell you why I'm here, you familiar with Admiral Domminis Jaye?"

"Oh no don't tell me, he's taken over your forces?" the Mon Cala responded, afraid to hear it.

"Yeah, he-he did, how do you know sir?"

"Jaye's a tyrant, he was like that before the war. Now that there's no chain of command to oppose him he's gathering every Republic and militia force under his command. He killed an admiral, Admiral Lope, because he refused to do as he was told."

"Wait a minute, Lope? He's Jaye's superior isn't he?"

"Was. Jaye's gone warlord, he has to be stopped, I assume you know where he is?"

"I know exactly where. Our base on Hrill, he's probably waiting to get it operational before he goes on the attack."

Location: Resistance Headquarters, Planet Hrill

Finn was poking at a fire that was burning in a raised clay pit in the center of the loyalist squad in the back of the cave where they were encamped. The cave was entirely sealed with a wall of hardened clay laid out a foot thick. Only a small opening allowed entry. They had set up cots up against the walls and a few lanterns provided light. Warmth was through the fire that Finn was busy stoking. For defense a small hall into the cave was formed by the pillbox that they'd built inside and gave them a full field of fire on the ledge in front of them. Around the firepit were chairs and stools made from rocks and stumps. Around him a handful of other Resistance members, the misfit squad that had been hiding him, was also sitting around the fire.

"The Admiral's Marines came down alright," Lieutenant Connix called out as she entered the room, sitting down next to Finn, she sighed heavily, "They made an example of the engineers who built the pumps when they had to shut down when leaks began sprouting."

"Told you he would," Finn responded, crossing his arms over his knees, "And?"

"The Army guys aren't very happy, a rift's forming Finn. The Admiral's people aren't letting anyone from our forces near anything vital. It could be dangerous, there was a fight in the mess hall, two Army troopers got thrown in the brig after the Admiral's men beat them up. That could be a sign of things to come if we're not careful," Connix warned him as two more people arrived, also Resistance loyalists, among them was Rose.

"Rose, you okay?" Finn asked, the two embracing in a hug as the second, an officer, sat down with Connix.

"Yeah I'm fine, the Admiral's issued orders, no major construction projects are to have our people near them anymore, not since your stunt," Rose responded as she sat.

"What's left?"

"The power generators are being installed, enough to power the base for some time. A sensor dish is rumored to be waiting to be placed on the mountain. Right now me and the others are just working on stringing lights and air filtration ducts and laying water pipes. The essential stuff that most anyone can do. We're going slowly, running into…problems as we go," Rose smirked knowingly.

"Nice, you gotten any grief for it?"

"We were yelled at by a few officers when we were on break. That didn't get received very well, so we turned off the aircon to the officer's quarters," Rose replied, "Gonna get pretty humid in there…"

"Thanks for that," Connix rolled her eyes.

"And the Falcon?" Finn asked.

"No one's touched it," the other officer responded, "The Admiral himself had a tour of it, something about it being an historical treasure."

"The Falcon is loved by everyone, no denies the importance of that ship to our cause," Connix added.

"We could use that," Finn whispered.

"What?"

"Think about it, if we could…somehow get the Admiral or his cronies to violate that general agreement of the Falcon remaining untouched…or even just make everyone think that he wants to…we could turn the tables," Finn explained, "It would be a violation of a kind of trust."

"The kind that would cause all sort of drama," Rose inferred, sensing what Finn was getting at.

"That'll be the kindling sewn into people's minds, when we spark it, it'll ignite," Finn nodded, assured in his thought process.

"But how do we do that?" the other officer asked.

"Not sure," Connix said, tapping her foot as she thought about it.

"How about tapping into the rumor mill? Like the Admiral's taking the ship as his own personal shuttle?" one of the soldiers offered.

"That'll work," Finn replied.

"Or what about you?" Rose asked, "What if we used you to add to it? The entire base knows to arrest you on sight. But what if we said that he intends on executing you. Many see you as a hero Finn, someone who risked everything turning on the First Order. The mere mention of executing you will stir resentment."

"Hey I don't-I don't wanna be executed!" Finn stammered.

"Just a rumor Finn relax," Rose laughed.

Everyone chuckled at that as they brainstormed additional ideas. Some were foolish, some were downright suicidal. Others, like harassing opposing officers, dosing their food and drinks with nonlethal chemicals like laxatives or sleeping pills were met with more constructive outcomes. A gameplan was now on the books. But there was one more part of the plan that hadn't been figured out. And it hung over everyone's heads like a ton of bricks, where was Leia. No mention of her had been made since she'd been arrested.

"And what about the General, our General?" Rose asked quietly.

"There hasn't been a word about her," Connix confirmed.

"He might just be letting the heat die down. Leia inspired a lot of loyalty, Jaye may be playing for time, trying to prove that his leadership is the preferred option so when he has to do something with her he has a solid base of support amongst our own," Finn mumbled to himself, tapping his prodding stick against the ground between his feet as he did so.

"Could he be intending to…execute Leia?" Connix asked.

"He's not foolish, he wouldn't do that. If he was that stupid he would've done it already," the other officer shook his head.

"Agreed but what if we forced him to use her as a hostage?"

"Then blood will be spilled, lots of it. Because if he gets that desperate there'll be enough of us to threaten his position," Finn sighed, knowing the end result of such a terrifying course of action.

"Let's hope it never has to come to that," Rose held a hand to Finn's shoulder.

Location: Ewok Village, Forest Moon of Endor

"Rey…" a soft voice spoke through her mind, bringing the young Jedi back from her sleep.

Rolling her head from side to side Rey started to come and opened her eyes. A soft orange light from candles set on a tiny table to her left were fairly easy on her eyes after such a long sleep. The dark of the night was evident through a circular opening in the wooden hut's wall to her right on the small bed that had been made for her. Rey found that she wasn't wearing the Republic Marine uniform that she'd had one when she'd lost consciousness when she sat up and started looking around.

"What the?!" she yelped as she saw that she wore a two-piece dress with her arms bare and a soft white undershirt under the soft brown tanned leather that showed just the slightest bit of midriff, where she saw a fresh clean bandage was tied beneath it.

She stood up hunched over in the hut and saw that she was barefoot, and that she had a dress on that cut deeply almost up to her hips, allowing for rapid and unrestrained movements. Her hair was down and had long thin braids in it on both sides with small white feathers beads and string on the ends. The Ewoks had given her the same royal treatment that, unbeknownst to Rey, Leia had received. As she looked at herself and noted the lack of pain and discomfort from her wound the Ewok medicine man came inside, rustling the rattling stick décor he held. He spoke to her in his native language, bidding her welcome.

"Umm…thanks?" Rey responded, looking down at the little being who seemed very pleased with having her awake.

The medicine man seemed to understand and bowed deeply at the waist, then gave a sudden 'ah!' as if remembering something. It startled Rey as she stepped out of his way and saw that he was going to a metal pot steaming in the corner, and he ladled out a thick stew into a wooden bowl no bigger than a condiment bowl to Rey and handed it to her. The concoction stank to high heaven, but Rey wasn't about to insult the cute little fuzzball with refusal. She took the stew and sipped at it. It was indeed bitter and foul. But such was the saying about medicine and healthy foods, if it tasted bad it had to be good for you. She finished it, and the medicine man seemed quite pleased and bidded her to lay down and rest, but something pulled at Rey as she looked to the outside of the hut, through the small door.

With the medicine man's back turned Rey stepped out into a misty foggy night. The glows of torches and interiors of the Ewok huts were scattered all around her and their bridges crisscrossed the lighter colored fog below. Rey still felt this peaceful view wasn't why she was here. Rey looked around and then gasped when she saw why she'd felt the Force call her here. A blue glow surrounding a small seated figure on the railing with long ears and a cane looked back at her.

"A good sleep had you?" the ghost asked.

"Who-or what are you?" Rey asked, curiously stepping forward.

"Oh, know not do you? Yoda am I. Here to complete your training I am," Yoda responded.

"As am I," a new voice stated, and the ghost of an aged human male with white hair and beard appeared wearing Jedi robes.

"We have always been with you. But the Force has revealed now to be the time for you to become a true Jedi," the voice of Luke stated as his own Force ghost appeared alongside Yoda, opposite of Obi Wan, "Lucky for you this is a bit of a nicer place to learn it."

"Oh, ungrateful you are young Skywalker," Yoda chided him, getting a chuckle from the other two.

"You're…you're here?" Rey asked, "How?"

"Learn that and more, you shall."

 **And so my favorite part begins. Writing the training segments of this is going to be a heck of a lot of fun. Looking forward to returning to this story on the update cycle I've got going here.**

 **Next Chapter Preview: Training on Endor, and deception on Hrill, plus more fanboys and fangirls for our friend Poe.**


End file.
